Jacob  Henle 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 


The    Medico-Historical    Writings 

of  VICTOR  ROBINSON,  PH.G.,  M.D. 

AN  ESSAY  ON  HASHEESH  (1912) 

An  historical  and  pharmacological  study  of 
Cannabis  Indica,  including  observations  and 
experiments. 

PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE  (1912) 

Biographic  sketches  of  Galen,  Aretaeus,  Para- 
celsus, Servetus,  Vesalius,  Pare,  Scheele,  Cav- 
endish, Hunter,  Jenner,  Laennec,  Simpson, 
Semmelweis,  Schleiden  and  Schwann,  Darwin. 

DON  QUIXOTE  OF  PSYCHIATRY  (1919) 

A  chapter  in  the  history  of  American  medicine, 
containing  information  not  elsewhere  available. 

PIONEERS  OF  BIRTH  CONTROL  (1919) 

The  first  volume  dealing  with  the  history  of 
Neo-Malthusianism  in  England  and  America. 

THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE  (1921) 

The  first  biography  in  the  English  language  of 
one  of  the  makers  of  modern  medicine. 


I 


JACOB    HENLE 


THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 


By 
Victor  Robinson,  M.D. 

Formerly  Editor  of  the  Medical  Review  of  Reviews; 
Editor  of  Medical  Life. 


1921 
MEDICAL  LIFE  COMPANY 

12  MOUNT  MORRIS  PARK  WEST 
NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 


Copyright  1921,  by 
Medical  Life 


Edition  limited  to  five  hundred  copies 


' 


100 

H3S1R 


Prefatory  Note 


Cordial  thanks  are  due  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Fielding  H.  Garrison,  of  the  Surgeon  General's 
Office,  for  the  circumspection  with  which  he  read 
this  manuscript — in  spite  of  the  inroads  made 
upon  his  private  leisure — and  for  his  courtesy  in 
offering  many  helpful  suggestions. 


G90149 


CONTENTS 

ttta 

I.     BOYHOOD  DAYS  .. 13 

II.     THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT    25 

III.  ADVENTURES   IN   BERLIN 37 

IV.  THE  ZURICH  PERIOD  49 

V.     ELISE  EGLOFF  59 

VI.     PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG  71 

VII.    THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN   81 

VIII.     THE  JUBILEE 91 

IX.     CONTRIBUTIONS   TO   SCIENCE    .  ..101 


TO  EMILIE  RECHT: 

If  ever  I  had  an  inspiration,  it  was  on  the  day  when  I  first  spoke  to 
you  about  Jacob  Henle.  I  explained  that  although  he  was  one  of  the 
greatest  medical  scientists  of  modern  times,  practically  nothing  about 
his  career  had  appeared  in  the  English  language.  Not  being  a  medical 
woman,  you  had  never  heard  of  Henle,  and  were  naturally  and  properly 
bored.  But  since  it  is  impossible  for  you  to  be  unsympathetic,  the  sub- 
ject was  again  broached,  and  somehow  we  decided  to  "do  Henle" — as 
an  experiment.  Your  share  of  the  work  was  to  consist  in  translating  all 
the  available  German  data,  after  which  I  was  to  use  your  translations 
as  a  basis  for  my  own  work. 

The  first  article  you  undertook  happened  to  be  desultory  and  tedi- 
ous, and  after  being  engulfed  in  its  discursiveness  and  battling  with  its 
technicalities,  you  would  have  abandoned  your  self-appointed  task,  but 
for  two  reasons;  in  the  first  place,  you  were  probably  curious  to  see 
what  I  could  accomplish  with  such  unpromising  material;  and  in  the 
second  place,  you  are  no  shirker.  So  the  work  went  on,  and  you  trans- 
lated the  notices  by  Leyden,  Flemming,  and  Pagel,  the  essay  by  Wal- 
deyer,  and  Kussmaul's  witty  chapter  in  his  Memoirs  from  the  Youth  of 
an  Old  Physician.  By  this  time,  the  greatness  of  the  man  had  grown 
upon  us,  and  the  experimental  stage  was  over. 

In  the  foregoing  sketches,  there  were  several  references  to  Merkel's 
comprehensive  life  of  Henle,  and  it  may  appear  strange  that  we  had 
not  yet  come  across  this  work,  but  the  reason  is  simple:  in  no  book- 
store or  library  in  New  York  could  this  volume  be  obtained,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  apply  to  the  Surgeon-General's  Office  for  this 
authoritative  biography  of  one  of  medicine's  noblest  figures. 

When  you  opened  Merkel,  Henle  was  resurrected.  The  real  en- 
thusiasm for  Henle  now  began,  and  it  added  a  new  thrill  to  our  lives. 
In  those  days,  no  friend  spoke  to  us  without  first  inquiring  about  Henle. 


With  what  devotion  you  entered  into  the  work,  and  how  vividly  your 
comments  and  exclamations  brought  the  man  before  me!  When  some 
characteristic  trait  or  incident  stirred  you  to  speak  about  Henle,  I  en- 
tered his  home,  observed  him  in  all  moods,  wondered  at  his  versatility, 
watched  the  humorous  corners  of  his  mouth,  saw  the  movements  of  his 
eyes,  and  learned  to  know  his  very  mannerisms. 

In  the  following  pages  I  have  followed  portions  of  your  version 
more  freely  than  I  would  feel  warranted  in  doing  if  Merkel  had  ap- 
peared in  English.  For  some  unaccountable  reason,  however,  this  splen- 
did biography  has  remained  untranslated  until  now,  and  the  English- 
speaking  profession  is  indebted  to  you  for  making  accessible  to  them 
the  life  and  letters  of  Jacob  Henle.  The  field  of  medico-historical  in- 
vestigation is  my  chosen  work;  there  is  rich  reaping,  and  I  do  not  know 
what  abundant  harvests  I  may  yet  find,  but  I  never  ask  for  a  better 
yield  than  was  gathered  in  the  days  when  you  and  I  did  Henle.  It  was 
an  unforgettable  privilege  to  be  associated  with  you  in  this  work,  and 
in  dedicating  this  book  to  you,  I  feel  that  I  am  only  returning  what 
already  belongs  to  you,  for  over  every  page  of  Merkel  you  cast  the 
glamor  of  your  own  rare  spirit. 

VICTOR  ROBINSON. 

New  York. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 


THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

I. 
BOYHOOD   DAYS 

Let  us  begin  this  chapter  with  a  simple  declarative  sen- 
tence :  The  book  of  Genesis  and  the  writings  of  Lester  Ward 
do  not  always  agree. 

According  to  the  ancient  author,  man  was  created  first 
and  foremost,  and  later  woman  was  fashioned  to  help  the 
man — but  the  modern  writer  says : 

The  female  is  not  only  the  primary  and  original  sex  but  continues 
throughout  as  the  main  trunk,  while  to  it  a  male  element  is  afterward 
added.  The  male  is  therefore,  as  it  were,  a  mere  afterthought  of 
nature.  Moreover,  the  male  sex  was  at  first  and  for  a  long  period, 
and  still  throughout  many  of  the  lower  orders  of  beings,  devoted 
exclusively  to  the  function  for  which  it  was  created,  viz.,  that  of  fer- 
tilization. Among  millions  of  humble  creatures  the  male  is  simply 
and  solely  a  fertilizer. 

But  even  among  the  highest  creatures,  nature  needs  the 
male  for  only  a  moment.  When  a  child  is  born,  its  father 
may  be  in  another  country,  or  in  the  arms  of  a  strange  woman, 
or  preoccupied,  or  dead.  In  the  summer  of  1809,  when  the 
Baiersdorf  rabbi's  daughter,  Helene,  gave  birth  to  her  son 
Jacob,  no  father  stood  at  the  bedside.  Months  passed,  and 
still  the  growing  infant  did  not  learn  that  a  father  is  a  part 

13 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

of  life's  scheme.  In  the  long  evenings,  the  mother  developed 
into  an  introspectionist,  living  her  romance  over  and  over, 
vividly  recalling  the  most  trifling  incidents. 

She  was  a  member  of  a  large  family  with  a  slender  purse 
— which  means  that  she  early  became  a  student  of  domestic 
science.  Her  proficiency  in  this  branch  evidently  became 
known,  for  Helene  was  invited  by  her  aunt,  Frau  Henle  of 
Furth,  to  come  to  that  flourishing  little  town  and  help  to 
manage  her  household,  which  consisted  of  a  husband  and 
seven  sons.  If  it  be  admitted  that  such  a  household  requires 
expert  management,  it  must  further  be  acknowledged  that  a 
sprightly  girl,  in  the  midst  of  seven  male  cousins,  is  not  apt 
to  be  neglected.  The  cousins  appear  to  have  wooed  Helene 
en  masse — the  elder  ones  with  the  ease  which  comes  from 
experience,  and  the  lad  Wilhelm  with  the  bashfulness  of  a 
first  love.  "Faint  heart  never  won  fair  lady,"  has  been  dinned 
into  our  ears  until  it  has  become  a  platitude;  indeed,  certain 
sociologists  gravely  maintain  that  even  the  most  civilized 
woman  has  a  secret  craving  for  the  cave-man  who  comes 
a-wooing  with  a  club— but  this  is  simply  a  picturesque  theory, 
of  value  to  writers  of  fiction.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  often 
happens  that  the  masterful  courtship  of  practiced  veterans 
cannot  compete  with  the  awkward  devotion  and  mute  adora- 
tion of  a  shy  lover.  Women  appreciate  modesty  in  their 
wooers,  but  no  man  is  modest  after  his  first  conquest. 

When  Helene  and  Wilhelm  were  betrothed,  she  was 
twenty-one,  and  he  was  eighteen — hardly  five  feet  high,  with 
no  money,  and  his  school-books  still  on  his  desk.  The  uncer- 
tain future  darkened  unexpectedly,  for  the  boy's  father  died 


BOYHOOD  DAYS  15 

suddenly,  and  through  the  legerdemain  of  unfaithful  admin- 
istration the  family  estate  vanished.  So  Wilhelm  Henle  put 
away  his  unfinished  text-books,  and  went  out  into  the  world. 
In  those  days  the  shadow  of  Napoleon  lay  over  Europe, 
and  militarism  was  everywhere.  Wilhelm,  like  many  others, 
began  his  career  by  obtaining  employment  in  the  supply- 
department  of  the  army.  He  had  not  the  Midas-touch  of  a 
Rothschild,  and  no  carrier-pigeons  brought  him  fortunes  from 
the  air.  But  he  hummed  and  whistled  at  his  task,  for  the 
goal  was  clear  before  him.  Wilhelm  worked,  while  Helene 
waited — and  after  six  years  they  were  married  in  Leipzig. 
Then  the  young  husband  hurried  off  to  business,  absenting 
himself  for  considerable  periods,  leaving  his  wife  alone  to 
enjoy  the  countless  literary  and  musical  associations  of  Ger- 
many's cosmopolis.  But  neither  the  high-pitched  vault  where 
John  Sebastian  Bach  had  played  the  organ,  nor  the  house 
where  Klopstock  wrote  passionate  odes  to  his  disdainful  cousin 
Fanny,  nor  the  Hof,  unforgettably  portrayed  in  Goethe's 
Faust,  could  save  the  bride  from  loneliness  and  homesickness. 
Amidst  the  distractions  of  myriad-minded  Leipzig,  she  wept 
for  her  little  room  in  Furth. 

She  prevailed  upon  her  husband  to  bring  her  back  to  the 
parental  home,  so  that  Jacob  was  born  in  Furth  instead  of 
Leipzig — thus  losing  his  opportunity  to  be  Richard  Wagner's 
town-brother.  The  event  occurred  during  one  of  the  mer- 
chant's business-trips,  and  he  did  not  meet  his  offspring  until 
nine  months  later.  A  mother  loves  her  child  at  first  sight, 
but  a  father  must  become  acclimatized.  When  Wilhelm  first 
looked  at  Jacob,  he  saw  before  him  a  dressed-up  child  instead 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

of  a  naked  fetus  smeared  with  vernix  caseosa,  and  yet  he 
could  not  escape  the  initial  shock  which  comes  to  so  many 
fathers.  He  frankly  pronounced  the  youngster  ugly — to  the 
mother's  amazement  and  dismay.  But  on  closer  inspection 
the  critical  sire  modified  his  opinion  to  the  extent  of  declaring 
the  little  fellow  passable,  and  before  again  departing  for  busi- 
ness he  had  made  the  discovery  that  the  sunshine  lay  in  his 
baby's  smile,  and  that  his  eyes  were  big  and  brown  and 
beautiful. 

Other  children  followed,  and  Jacob  accepted  it  as  a  matter 
of  course  when  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  four  sisters 
— Marie,  Rosalie,  Johanne,  and  Helene.  They  developed 
under  the  direction  of  their  mother,  as  the  traveling  father 
was  not  sufficiently  familiar  with  the  family  to  be  its  task- 
master. The  father  who  is  home  nearly  all  the  time  naturally 
assumes  the  role  of  disciplinarian,  but  the  father  who  visits 
his  hearth  at  rare  intervals  is  usually  as  indulgent  as  a  grand- 
mother. It  is  among  the  traditions  of  the  Henle  family  that 
Frau  Helene  was  capable  of  serious  procedure,  yet  seldom 
was  compelled  to  resort  to  chastisement,  as  all  the  children, 
although  lively,  were  gentle  and  easily  managed,  having  in- 
herited their  father's  gracious  nature.  The  most  vivid  recol- 
lection the  Henle  children  retained  of  their  father  was  his 
constant  humming  and  whistling,  for  this  merchant  was  a 
musical  enthusiast.  He  was  not  a  performer  himself,  but 
there  were  few  operas  or  concerts  which  he  missed,  and  after 
the  first  bars  of  any  selection,  he  could  finish  the  melody. 
Herr  Henle  cultivated  business  because  it  is  necessary  to  live, 
but  he  didn't  live  until  the  opening  notes  of  the  overture. 


BOYHOOD  DAYS  17 

While  Jacob  Henle  was  growing  up,  Johann  Peter  Frank 
was  growing  old.  The  founder  of  modern  public  hygiene  had 
reached  eminence,  but  the  ascent  was  terrible:  when  Frank 
was  less  than  a  year  old,  his  inhuman  father,  enraged  at  his 
cries,  threw  him  out  of  doors;  the  little  outcast  survived  in- 
fancy, but  at  the  age  of  four  was  almost  murdered  by  some 
boys;  at  nine  he  was  taken  to  Italy  by  the  Piarists  to  be 
castrated  because  of  his  fine  voice,  but  he  escaped  to  write  in 
indelible  ink  the  name  of  Johann  Peter  Frank  on  the  annals 
of  German  medicine.  He  climbed  to  the  mountain-peaks  of 
fame,  but  when  he  looked  backward  along  the  trail,  the  ghosts 
of  his  childhood  memories  arose,  all  tear-stained  and  blood- 
beclouded.  How  different  was  the  childhood  of  Jacob  Henle ! 
Guided  by  loving  and  discerning  parents,  he  imbibed  only  the 
good  and  beautiful,  ripening  in  an  atmosphere  of  peace  and 
culture  and  music. 

Moving  day,  although  greatly  dreaded  by  adults,  is  much 
relished  by  youngsters.  Children  are  natural  nomads,  and 
delight  in  changing  their  habitats.  During  his  sixth  year, 
Jacob  had  the  opportunity  of  informing  his  companions  that 
he  was  going  to  move.  Fiirth  had  become  too  limited  for 
the  Henles,  and  they  were  bound  for  Mainz — the  Rhine-city 
which  gave  the  printing-press  to  mankind.  In  1815,  moving 
was  not  an  art,  and  accompanied  by  a  female  servant,  a  pri- 
vate tutor,  and  their  baggage,  the  Henles  rolled  along  for 
many  a  weary  day  in  a  hackney-coach  before  they  sighted  the 
steeples  of  Mainz. 

Comfortable  days  followed,  for  the  star  of  economic  pros- 
perity shone  over  the  Henles.  They  lived  in  a  good  house, 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

employed  a  male  servant,  kept  horse  and  carriage — that  badge 
of  respectability — discharged  the  private  tutor  and  engaged 
better  ones,  among  them  being  Monsieur  Hugier,  who  is 
credited  with  laying  the  foundation  of  Jacob's  excellent 
French.  Jacob  studied  the  violin  under  Kreuser  and  Marie 
took  lessons  on  the  piano,  and  soon  brother  and  sister  could 
play  duets.  It  was  found  that  Jacob  inherited  his  father's 
musical  memory,  and  could  reproduce  entire  acts  of  even 
infrequently  performed  operas.  His  musical  ability,  however, 
could  not  overcome  his  boyish  passion  for  noise,  for  among 
Jacob's  earliest  compositions  is  this  appeal : 

Dear  Mother,— I  have  heard  that  there  will  be  a  beautiful  per- 
formance and  thinking  that  you  will  perhaps  attend,  I  beg  you  to  take 
me  along.  Herr  Majot  tells  me  that  there  will  be  fighting  and  shoot- 
ing, and  you  know  this  is  my  only  joy.  I  hope  that  this  is  not  a  bold 
request;  should  you,  however,  not  be  in  favor  of  it  and  should  not 
consent,  you  may  nevertheless  count  upon  my  sincere  filial  love. 
Your  affectionate  son, 

J.  HENLE. 


The  parents  had  long  planned  the  family's  conversion 
to  the  dominant  religion,  one  of  their  motives  in  leaving  their 
native  town  being  its  essential  Jewishness,  Furth  owing  its 
prosperity  to  Jews  who  had  fled  from  persecution  in  Nurem- 
berg. In  Mainz  it  was  easier  to  undergo  Christian  trans- 
formation, since  it  is  the  seat  of  a  bishop.  Having  decided 
to  become  Christians,  it  was  next  necessary  to  decide  what 
brand  of  Christian  to  become,  whether  Papist  or  Protestant, 


BOYHOOD  DAYS  19 

and  then  select  the  denomination.  The  two  elder  children, 
Jacob  and  Marie,  had  to  write  out  the  reasons  for  their  choice, 
and  there  was  much  solemnity  in  the  household — but  over 
the  ceremony  of  changing  one  theology  for  another  let  us 
draw  the  charitable  veil  of  silence.  To  discard  the  trammels 
of  an  outworn  creed  is  splendid,  and  it  is  unfortunate  when 
expediency  requires  the  re-riveting  of  similar  fetters.  How- 
ever, we  will  close  this  episode  by  simply  remarking  that  in 
his  twelfth  year,  Jacob  Henle  passed  through  an  experience 
which  seldom  befalls  a  rabbi's  grandson — he  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  evangelical  faith. 

Business  dictates  where  men  should  go,  and  when  Herr 
Henle's  affairs  drew  him  toward  the  French  border,  the  fam- 
ily contemplated  removal  to  Coblenz.  In  order  to  make  the 
preliminary  arrangements,  the  father  preceded  his  flock,  and 
the  mother  prepared  to  follow — under  the  protectorate  of 
Jacob.  The  little  man  felt  the  importance  of  his  office,  and 
was  keyed  up  with  excitement  over  the  prospect  of  the  jour- 
ney. He  thought  the  day  of  departure  would  never  come, 
but  it  finally  arrived,  and  caused  Jacob  Henle  to  wonder  at 
the  perverseness  and  unreasonableness  of  life.  He  did  not 
feel  well ;  his  leg  was  hot  and  it  ached,  but  he  tried  to  hide  his 
condition,  for  he  was  afraid  of  having  to  remain  at  home,  and 
he  was  resolved,  boy-like,  to  enjoy  himself  at  all  hazards. 
The  carriage  rattled  on,  every  moment  intensifying  the  aching 
and  the  swelling.  The  mother,  engrossed  with  her  plans, 
failed  to  notice  that  her  son  was  unnaturally  subdued.  At 
last  Coblenz  was  reached,  but  Jacob  did  not  jump  down  in 
eagerness.  He  could  not  walk,  and  it  was  necessary  to  carry 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

him  to  bed,  where  he  spent  a  night  of  suffering.  So  the  day 
which  was  anticipated  with  joy,  brought  with  it  nothing  but 
sorrow. 

Dr.  Settegast  diagnosed  the  case  as  periostitis,  and  for 
weeks  Jacob  lay  in  Coblenz,  while  his  mother  kept  traveling 
back  and  forth  from  Coblenz  to  Mainz,  to  divide  her  attention 
between  her  scattered  brood.  Professor  Leydig,  the  foremost 
surgeon  of  Mainz,  was  summoned  to  Jacob's  bedside,  and 
eased  the  patient  with  an  incision;  another  period  of  exile 
followed,  and  when  Jacob  was  able  to  be  conveyed  to  Mainz, 
Leydig  removed  the  necrotic  areas  with  favorable  results, 
although  recurring  attacks  of  periostitis  plagued  Henle  at 
spasmodic  intervals  throughout  his  career.  During  his  pro- 
tracted convalescence,  Jacob  demonstrated  Leydig's  operation 
to  his  astonished  sisters — with  the  aid  of  his  father's  strop 
and  a  button-hook.  Unfortunately,  the  invalid's  recollection 
of  the  operation  was  vivid  enough,  for  1821  was  in  the  pre- 
chloroformic  days. 

Jacob's  illness  upset  the  family  plans  for  a  time,  and  it 
was  not  until  1824  that  the  Henles  settled  at  Coblenz.  Jacob 
was  now  fifteen,  alive  to  everything,  but  interested  chiefly 
in  music  and  drawing.  As  he  looked  out  of  his  new  home, 
he  saw  a  plain-looking  house  opposite.  There  was  no  gold 
within  for  thieves  to  steal,  yet  its  unpretending  walls  held 
priceless  treasures.  Many  youths — and  certain  elders — passed 
that  humble  door-step  with  desire,  and  accounted  it  a  privilege 
to  be  permitted  entrance.  That  rickety  stairway  led  the 
pilgrim  to  a  shrine,  for  here  dwelt  Herr  Zeiller  and  his  five 
charming  daughters. 


BOYHOOD  DAYS  21 

The  blend  of  male  and  female  voices  was  often  heard  in 
that  home,  mingling  with  the  voice  of  the  violin  and  piano, 
for  the  lives  of  the  Zeillers  were  consecrated  by  music.  Nat- 
urally the  Henles  drifted  in ,  and  the  two  families  were 
mutually  delighted  with  each  other,  passing  many  wonderful 
hours  in  song  and  play. 

Among  those  who  visited  the  Zeillers  was  a  cobbler's  son 
who  neither  sang  nor  played;  sometimes  his  eyes  flashed, 
but  he  seldom  spoke  or  smiled;  yet  he  came  whenever  he 
could,  and  watched  Nanni  Zeiller.  Johannes  Miiller  looking 
at  Nanni  Zeiller — science  worshipping  beauty. 

Nanni's  younger  sister,  the  fascinating  Malchen,  had  many 
admirers ;  she  and  Jacob  formed  the  habit  of  singing  together, 
and  the  world  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  young 
man's  passion  for  music  was  complicated  by  a  passion  for 
Malchen.  One  of  the  symptoms  of  love  is  the  desire  to 
bestow  gifts  upon  the  object  of  adoration,  but  a  boy's  purse 
and  his  impulses  are  usually  at  variance,  and  Jacob  was 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  stealing  his  mother's  blossoming 
plant — which  he  presented  to  Malchen  with  the  cautious  stipu- 
lation not  to  place  it  upon  a  window  fronting  the  street. 
In  return,  Malchen  brought  him  a  plateful  of  dumplings,  but 
it  is  not  stated  whether  he  was  enjoined  to  eat  these  in  secret. 
Jacob's  record  in  mathematics  and  the  classics  now  suffered 
a  decline,  but  the  blissful  hours  spent  with  his  first  sweet- 
heart compensated  him  for  lowered  scholarship. 

The  lad  looked  forward  to  the  summer  as  the  time  when 
release  from  school  would  give  him  more  leisure  for  Malchen, 
but  in  the  summer  his  idyl  was  over.  For  Malchen,  lovely 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

but  poor,  was  abruptly  engaged  to  marry  a  gentleman,  elderly 
but  rich.  Young  Henle  now  passed  through  a  period  familiar 
to  so  many  adolescents,  when  a  feeling  of  suffocation  clutches 
the  heart  and  the  grey  world  is  all  ennui,  when  the  brooding 
melancholy  of  the  oppressive  day  is  followed  by  the  deeper 
anguish  of  the  endless  night,  and  to  the  memory  of  lost  pleas- 
ures is  added  the  realization  that  these  joys  have  vanished 
forever. 

In  this  stage,  much  of  the  world's  poetry  is  born,  and 
Henle  wrote  this  lamentation  to  the  summer: 


0  Summer,  thou  hast  taken  from  me 
All  my  happiness, 

And  brought  me  nothing 

But  sadness  and  sorrow. 

Shall  I  rejoice  with  the  swallows 

Who  returned  to  us, 

When  a  beautiful  bird 

Has  flown  from  me  forever? 

Sing,  O  sing,  thou  nightingale, 

Sing  your  songs  in  the  bushes; 

The  sound  of  one  sweet  voice 

1  shall  never  hear  again. 
Shalt  thou,  sweet  air  of  spring, 
Caress  me  with  thy  flowery  fragrance? 
Sweeter  than  all  the  flowers'  scent, 
Was  the  breath  of  my  sweet  one. 

O  heavens,  with  your  azure  blue, 
Cover  yourselves  with  rainy  clouds! 
For  her  eyes  too  swam  in  tears, 
When  our  ways  were  parted. 


BOYHOOD  DAYS  23 

What  care  I  for  the  green  forest, 

Since  no  longer  she  walks  beside  me? 

Can  I  enjoy  the  flowery  meadow, 

When  she  is  no  longer  with  me? 

O  Summer,  thou  hast  taken  from  me 

All  my  happiness; 

O  thou  cruel  summertime 

Hadst  thou  never,  never  come! 

Many  other  lamentations  fell  from  the  sufferer's  pen,  and 
Henle  closed  the  cycle  of  his  love-songs  with  this  dirge  to 
the  flames : 

To  the  Fire  do  I  consecrate  my  songs, 
Which  I  sang  in  my  happy  days; 
With  each  spark  that  goes  out, 
My  sweet  hopes  go  to  their  graves. 
So  burnt  my  heart  in  bright  flames 
For  Thee;  thou  scornedst  it,  then  it  broke; 
When,  oh  when,  will  come  the  time 
Which  will  disperse  its  ashes? 

On  the  day  of  Malchen's  wedding,  Henle's  tortured  spirit 
would  not  permit  him  to  remain  in  town,  and  he  received 
his  parents'  permission  to  visit  some  of  his  friends  in  Mainz. 
A  boy's  love  is  acute,  but  rarely  fatal,  and  Henle  recovered. 
With  the  re-opening  of  school  he  returned  calmly  to  his 
benches,  and  graduated  peacefully. 

At  eighteen,  he  stood  at  the  cross-roads  of  life,  undecided 
which  way  to  turn.  His  friend,  Ludwig  Lindenschmitt,  who 
even  then  was  an  antiquarian  enthusiast,  urged  the  talented 
youth  to  study  the  Germanic  authors,  and  become  their  his- 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

torian.  Henle  was  impressed  with  this  suggestion,  but  he 
thought  too  of  law,  and  was  also  inclined  to  become  a  preacher. 
At  this  critical  juncture,  Johannes  Miiller  again  crossed  the 
young  man's  path,  and  the  decision  was  made.  Not  litera- 
ture, nor  jurisprudence,  nor  theology,  but  medicine  was  to  be 
Jacob  Henle's  life-work. 


II 

THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT 

In  the  autumn  of  1827,  Jacob  Henle  matriculated  at  the 
University  of  Bonn — he  was  no  longer  a  boy  at  home,  but  an 
academic  citizen.  The  day  after  his  arrival  in  the  university 
town,  he  received  a  dinner-invitation  from  Johannes  Miiller 
and  his  wife — for  Johannes  Miiller  had  not  looked  at  Nanni 
Zeiller  in  vain.  Their  housekeeping  was  unpretentious,  as  the 
professor's  salary  was  meagre,  and  Nanni's  dowry  was  nothing 
but  a  song-book.  They  plied  Henle  with  questions  about  the 
folks  in  Coblenz,  and  were  very  friendly.  After  dinner,  Henle 
and  Frau  Nanni  sang  together — and  perhaps  he  thought  of 
the  days  when  he  used  to  sing  with  Nanni's  sister.  Reticent 
and  introspective,  Johannes  Miiller  was  a  man  apart;  he  did 
not  join  in  the  festivities  held  in  his  home,  but  his  face  lit  up 
when  he  heard  his  wife  singing.  Henle  came  frequently,  relish- 
ing the  scientific  talks  with  Miiller,  and  the  duets  with  Nanni. 

Henle  thoroughly  enjoyed  his  introduction  to  university 
life:  he  subscribed  for  a  season-ticket  to  the  theatre,  became 
expert  in  dancing,  took  riding  lessons,  and  never  refused  to 
attend  an  affair  that  promised  to  be  jolly.  He  was  proud  of  his 
social  debut,  and  wrote  to  Marie : 

25 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

Can  you  imagine,  dear  heart,  little  Jacob  in  a  frock  coat  and  cravat, 
holding  a  teacup  gracefully,  alone  among  seven  ladies,  conversing 
politely  about  balls  in  Bonn  and  Coblenz — can  you  imagine  your 
stiff  brother  like  this,  at  Professor  Treber's?  I  did  not  feel  exactly 
comfortable  as  long  as  there  was  no  other  masculine  being  in  the 
room,  but  I  was  sufficiently  composed  to  bow  properly,  and  without 
dropping  anything  or  smashing  any  crockery,  I  managed  to  sip 
down  two  cups  of  tea. 

Even  in  the  midst  of  accident,  Henle  exhibited  a  serene 
countenance  to  society.  Once,  while  standing  up  and  convers- 
ing vivaciously  with  the  lady  of  the  house,  his  piece  of  cake 
fell  from  the  cup  and  saucer  which  he  was  holding  in  his 
hand.  In  stooping  to  recover  the  delicacy,  the  treacherous 
spoon  also  fell.  Instead  of  being  flustered  and  offering  a  thou- 
sand apologies  Henle  said  to  the  hostess,  "Now  that  the  cake 
and  spoon  are  already  on  the  floor,  may  I  place  my  cup  there 
also?" — and  thus  the  situation  was  saved  by  laughter. 

Henle  was  among  those  scheduled  for  Professor  Bischoff's 
grand  ball,  but  he  found  his  raiment  inadequate  for  the  occa- 
sion. His  comrades  came  to  the  rescue,  and  from  one  he  bor- 
rowed a  hat,  another  loaned  him  a  cravat,  a  third  came  forward 
with  a  collar,  and  a  fourth  furnished  a  vest.  It  always  rains 
at  the  wrong  time,  and  Henle  hesitated  to  expose  his  faultless 
outfit  to  the  Bonnian  mud  and  the  threatening  weather.  A 
fifth  friend,  however,  permitted  Henle  to  mount  his  back,  and 
off  they  went  in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  Any  honest  horse 
would  have  halted  in  front  of  Bischoff's  house,  but  this  human 
steed  refused  to  drop  his  rider  and  galloped  with  him  among 
the  assembled  guests,  creating  what  he  expected — a  sensation. 

Henle  joined  the  famous  student  society,  the  Burschen- 
schaft,  and  the  members  hailed  the  merchant's  son  with  joy. 
They  liked  his  tobacco,  and  smoked  his  cigars;  they  ordered 


THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT  27 

coffee  at  his  expense,  and  showed  a  preference  for  his  beer  and 
wine;  they  praised  his  ham,  and  were  enthusiastic  over  his 
sausages.  In  fact,  Henle  found  himself  so  popular,  that  he 
soon  withdrew  from  the  Burschenschaft,  and  expected  to  hear 
no  more  of  it. 

College  life  appears  to  be  unusually  expensive,  for  noth- 
ing is  more  characteristic  of  students  than  the  persistency  with 
which  they  write  home  for  money.  Some  students  are  prosaic, 
and  simply  say  they  need  more  money  for  food  and  rent,  while 
others  are  inventive  and  announce  they  require  an  extra  al- 
lowance to  purchase  a  celiac  axis.  As  evidence  that  Henle  was 
a  regular  fellow,  let  us  submit  the  following  document  which 
he  transmitted  to  his  parents : 

MoneyS  Money!  Money!  I  have  nothing,  and  I  owe  my  friend 
Mathieu  ten  dollars.  Money!  I  paid  forty-six  dollars  for  tuition, 
much  for  books,  and  twenty  dollars  for  housekeeping.  Money!  Other- 
wise things  are  well  with  me,  but  Money!  Money!  Money!  Last 
Sunday  I  visited  Muller  who  grows  more  congenial  and  friendly 
from  day  today.  He  gave  me  some  good  advice.  I  remained  there 
until  evening.  Professor  Pugge,  with  his  wife  of  eight  days  who 
has  a  very  nice  voice,  came  in  the  afternoon  and  invited  me.  But 
Money!  Money!  Yesterday  evening  I  visited  Pugge,  where  I  met  many 
fashionable  students,  and  the  professor's  parents-in-law,  Hasse  and 
his  wife — Hasse  is  one  of  the  most  prominent  Jurists  here.  I  sang  sev- 
eral songs  with  the  lady  of  the  house  and  remained  until  half  past  ten. 
I  also  made  the  acquaintance  of  Prof.  Hasse's  son,  a  young  man  of  my 
age,  and  Fuchs  too,  I  learned  to  know.  I  think  we  shall  become  friends. 
Money!  Money! 

You  see  now  that  I  could  live  here  in  dulci  jubilo  if  only  I  had 
money,  only  Money!  Money!  but  quick!  Although  I  am  screaming 
for  money,  I  must  also  write  about  something  else.  I  really  cannot 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

use  my  cloak,  and  when  I  assure  you  of  this,  you  will  simply  have 
to  trust  me  and  take  my  word  for  it.  I  need  eight  yards  and  a  fur 
collar.  When  you  send  this,  also  send  a  pair  of  shoes,  also  my 
calendar  which  I  left  at  home  by  mistake,  a  few  pounds  of  sugar 
for  the  evening  tea,  and  a  good  Mainz  ham.  But  above  all — Money! 
Also  forward  to  me  Biot's  Experimental  Physics  in  four  volumes. 
The  next  time  I  shall  write  you  about  the  university.  Money!  Money! 
Money!  Cloth!  Fur  Collar!  Calendar!  Biot's  Physics!  Ham!  Sugar! 
Money!  Money!  Money!  Money!  Ham!  Money!  Cloth!  Money! 
Fur  Collar!  Money!  Calendar!  Money!  Physics!  Money!  Sugar! 
Money.  Your  eternally  loving,  Jacob. 

While  we  were  recording  instances  of  Henle's  social  suc- 
cess, a  suspicion  might  have  been  born  in  the  reader's  mind 
that  the  matriculant  was  unfaithful  to  the  curriculum.  The 
passageway  to  medicine  is  through  the  labyrinth  of  anatomy, 
and  many  turn  away  in  despair,  but  Henle  entered  with  ease. 
He  wrote  his  parents: 

I  derive  so  much  pleasure  from  these  studies  that  I  cannot  un- 
derstand how  my  good  genius  permitted  me  to  waver  so  long,  be- 
fore it  brought  me  upon  the  right  path.  What  others  regard  as  dry 
stuff — such  as  the  necesary,  thorough  and  almost  minute  observation  of 
all  the  parts — fills  me  with  astonishment  and  joyous  admiration  of 
the  manner  in  which  it  leads  up  with  one  end  in  view,  even  in  thj 
smallest  particulars.  I  know  of  no  better  food  for  imagination  than 
the  beautiful  formation  of  the  human  body,  constructed  of  indi 
vidual  bones  and  muscles,  which  I  know  accurately  and  can  pu- 
together.  I  know  I  shall  learn  something  sensible,  I  shall  positively 
not  be  a  bungler. 

From  the  first,  he  began  to  think  anatomically  and  physi- 
ologically ;  in  the  second  semester  he  illustrated  Miiller's  work 
on  glands,  and  became  active  in  the  master's  laboratory. 


THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT  29 

Vacation  time  approached,  but  instead  of  packing  his  be- 
longings, Henle  lay  in  bed  with  a  wounded  cheek.  As  a  duel- 
ist he  was  not  a  success.  It  is  true,  he  was  once  victorious,  but 
as  he  stood  there  with  legs  apart,  proudly  lowering  his  rapier, 
its  point  pierced  his  shoe  and  cut  his  foot.  When  Henle  finally 
presented  himself  at  home,  nothing  seemed  so  conspicuous 
about  him  as  the  schmisse;  his  parents  were  horrified  and  did 
not  permit  the  mutilated  student  to  show  himself  in  the  streets 
of  Coblenz.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  Henle  felt  the  weight 
of  parental  wrath — his  mother  was  especially  shocked  and 
angry — although  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  German  student 
could  have  avoided  the  inevitable  mensuren.  Saint-Beuve  once 
fought  a  duel  under  an  umbrella,  but  Henle  found  himself 
under  a  cloud.  Perhaps  if  he  had  been  more  lucky,  his  parents 
would  have  been  less  indignant.  At  any  rate,  there  was  a  rift 
in  the  Henle  lute,  and  with  impatience  the  household  awaited 
the  coming  of  the  new  semester  which  would  call  the  student 
away  to  new  duties. 

Henle  continued  his  studies  at  Heidelberg,  and  was  de- 
lighted with  his  teachers:  Naegele,  whose  description  of  the 
obliquely  contracted  pelvis — one  of  his  specimens  was  that  of 
an  Egyptian  mummy — is  still  known  as  the  Naegele  pelvis; 
Chelius,  who  introduced  the  surgical  and  opthalmological  clin- 
ics into  Heidelberg,  and  whose  Handbook  of  Surgery  was 
translated  into  six  languages  and  reprinted  many  times  with- 
out criticism  until  Stromeyer  pointed  out  that  it  didn't  contain 
a  single  original  idea;  Puchelt,  who  adhered  to  the  School  of 
Natural  Philosophy,  and  whose  reputation  disappeared  with 
the  School ;  Arnold,  after  whom  a  dozen  structures  have  been 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

named,  such  as  Arnold's  canal,  Arnold's  ganglion,  Arnold's 
nerve;  Tiedemann,  who  was  Heidelberg's  first  professor  of 
anatomy  and  physiology,  but  whose  chief  claim  to  remem- 
brance is  perhaps  the  monograph  on  digestion  which  he  wrote 
in  collaboration  with  Gmelin. 

Anatomy  was  Henle's  favorite  subject.  He  prepared  ani- 
mal and  human  specimens,  frequently  corresponding  with 
Miiller,  who  stimulated  his  young  friend  by  keeping  him 
informed  of  his  work  and  writings.  Henle  practised  assidu- 
ously in  the  clinics,  and  experienced  the  felicity  of  being  called 
Herr  Doctor — by  charity  patients.  He  tried  out  his  first  blood- 
letting on  a  female,  and  relates  that  although  on  account  of 
the  roundness  of  her  arms  the  veins  were  hardly  visible,  yet 
he  completed  his  venesection  without  any  misfortune.  After 
having  cupped  three  times,  he  permitted  himself  to  cherish 
the  hope  that  if  he  should  fail  in  medicine,  he  could  be  a  suc- 
cessful bathkeeper. 

A  medical  student  is  apt  to  complain  that  his  course  con- 
sists of  an  excess  of  quizzes  and  a  scarcity  of  clinics,  but  Henle 
wrote : 

The  professors  surpassed  my  expectations  in  diligence,  polite- 
ness and  affability,  and  everyone  under  whom  I  study  understands 
his  subject  thoroughly.  However,  I  have  no  occasion  to  regret  that 
I  did  not  come  here  earlier,  for  while  the  practical  end  isl  well  rep- 
resented, the  preparatory  and  theoretical  courses  are  poor.  Without 
laying  a  scientific  foundation,  everyone  rushes  into  practice,  and 
the  results  of  this  superficial  and  empirical  method  will  come  to  the 
surface  as  soon  as  the  guiding  hand  of  the  teacher  is  withdrawn. 
The  machine-like  prescription-writing  is  certainly  not  our  highest 
goal,  and  whatever  such  a  mechanical  man  appropriates  through  many 


THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT  31 

years  of  experience  can  soon  be  equalled  if  we  are  willing  to  seek 
reason  and  ground.  This  is  the  only  way  by  which  we  will  be  able 
to  accomplish  something  independent,  and  will  not  be  compelled  to 
follow  blindly  what  others  tell  us  from  their  experience.  The  prac- 
titioner who  is  merely  concerned  about  practice,  may  through  some 
luck  and  savoir  faire,  attain  a  decent  income,  but  he  will  never  ac- 
complish anything  for  his  science,  and  I  do  not  call  him  fortunate, 
who  is  satisfied  with  just  that. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  stay  in  Heidelberg,  irresolution 
again  assaulted  Henle.  Vacation  arrived,  and  he  was  still 
undetermined  whether  to  plan  a  clinical  or  academic  career, 
but  he  expressed  his  indecision  charmingly: 

I  am  still  undecided  regarding  my  future.  Much  draws  me  to 
the  practical,  especially  the  position  of  a  physician  who  knows  how 
to  make  friends  and  inspire  confidence.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
the  knowledge  that  I  can  pursue  the  career  of  a  teacher,  and  to  sit 
in  a  lecturer's  chair  with  believing  open-mouthed  youngsters  in 
front  of  me,  devouring  with  pointed  pens  every  word  as  though  it 
were  an  oracle,  and  laughing  at  every  poor  joke  which  I  surely  will 
not  fail  to  make  ex  officio — this  is  not  a  bad  picture.  But  the  years 
of  a  privat  docent!  the  years  of  dependence  and  huddling!  and  on 
the  other  hand,  the  seven  first  lean  years  of  practice!  In  short,  I 
am  and  remain  undecided. 

In  such  a  crisis,  Johannes  Miiller  was  the  man  to  whom  to 
appeal,  but  the  inspired  teacher  was  away  in  the  land  of 
Leeuwenhoek  and  Swammerdam.  Upon  Miiller's  return,  just 
before  the  re-opening  of  classes,  Henle  hastened  to  his  mentor, 
and  laid  his  problems  before  him.  There  was  no  wavering  in 
Miiller's  devotion  to  pure  science ;  in  the  presence  of  a  talented 
youth,  his  flaming  enthusiasm  swept  aside  all  hesitation  and 
Henle  followed  Miiller  to  Bonn,  with  the  settled  purpose  of 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

dedicating  his  life  to  anatomico-physiological  research.  The 
comfort  that  comes  from  resolution  is  evident  from  Henle's 
communication  to  his  parents : 

Recently  I  had  the  good  fortune  of  making  an  anatomical  dis- 
covery, which  when  I  introduce  it  into  the  medical  world,  will 
make  for  me  somewhat  of  a  name.  Miiller  to  whom  I  spoke  of  it 
is  much  pleased  and  he  confirms  my  opinion,  so  I  may  now  call  him 
as  witness.  If  Miiller  goes  to  Paris  this  fall,  as  he  expects  to,  I 
shall  make  my  further  investigations  and  write  down  my  findings 
partly  in  Coblenz,  and  am  looking  forward  with  much  pleasure  to 
spending  several  weeks  with  you. 

Since  my  arrival  here,  I  have  become  convinced  that  I  should 
take  up  the  teaching  profession.  Since  my  renewed  intercourse  with 
Miiller,  my  desire  for  anatomy,  which  I  will  be  able  to  pursue  only 
as  decent,  has  awakened  once  more.  I  find  that  I  know  much 
more  about  it  than  I  gave  myself  credit  for,  and  the  investigations 
which  I  conduct  upon  Muller's  instigation  convince  me  that  I  do  not 
lack  talent.  Furthermore,  there  are  other  conditions  which  draw 
me  to  this  career.  First,  Muller's  friendship,  which  can  be  of  so 
much  help  to  me.  Second,  I  can  make  good  use  of  my  skill 
in  drawing.  Third,  although  I  cannot  deny  that  it  will  take  some 
years  before  I  become  independent,  yet  I  need  not  hurry  especially. 
And  now,  that  I  have  once  more  gained  self-reliance,  and  hope  to 
accomplish  something  worth  while,  I  also  have  the  courage  to  ask 
for  your  parental  love.  Fourth,  I  see  too,  how  my  entire  being  in- 
clines me  more  and  more  to  the  life  of  an  instructor.  I  am  daily 
growing  more  sedate,  more  quiet,  more  one-sided,  and  am  losing 
more  and  more  the  qualities  necessary  to  the  practical  physician. 
I  should  not  like  to  choose  a  profession  that  would  make  it  necessary 
for  me  to  take  off  my  dressing-gown  before  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  allow  my  pipe  to  go  out.  Fortunately,  I  find  the 
other  reasons  which  I  am  giving  you  conclusive  enough,  otherwise 


\ 


ADOLF    KUSSMAUL 


THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT  33 

you  might  blame  this  last  one  for  my  decision.  Finally,  there  is  not 
a  single  one  of  my  acquaintances,  either  wise  or  unwise,  who  does 
not  recognize  my  plan  as  a  very  good  one,  while  Miiller  greets  my 
decision  with  hearty  joy. 

Now  that  I  am  clear  regarding  this  important  question,  I  have 
decided  to  remain  here  over  this  winter.  The  reason  for  this  I 
need  not  explain  'to  you.  The  rich  clinics  in  Berlin  do  not  attract 
me  any  more;  I  intend  to  devote  myself  exclusively  to  anatomical 
studies  and  researches,  and  where  can  I  do  it  better  than  here?  I 
can  do  my  work  under  the  very  eyes  of  Miiller,  and  call  upon  him  for 
advice  whenever  I  am  in  the  slightest  doubt;  his  instruments,  micro- 
scopes and  books  are  entirely  at  my  disposal. 

I  am  also  on  good  terms  with  Weber,  and  he  has  already  spoken 
to  me  about  some  preparations  for  his  lectures,  and  in  return  has 
promised  me  as  much  material  for  dissection  as  I  need.  I  am 
therefore  looking  forward  to  a  very  pleasant  period,  where  I  can 
lay  aside  all  examination-studies,  and  busy  myself  entirely  with  my 
favorite  occupations.  In  the  morning  I  shall  do  anatomy,  the  after- 
noon I  shall  devote  to  dissection,  either  'for  myself  or  for  Miiller, 
and  in  the  evening  I  shall  read.  I  cannot  tell  you  with  what  expecta- 
tions I  am  looking  forward  to  this  time.  And  still  more.  Miiller 
proposed  to  me  material  upon  which  I  can  work  and  perhaps  submit 
to  a  Journal;  in  fact,  Miiller  asked  my  co-operation  in  a  larger  work, 
which  it  would  not  be  advisable  for  one  person  to  perform,  and  then 
I  shall  allow  myself  to  be  led  into  the  world  by  "him  and  shall  hang 
my  name  to  his,  and  let  him  drag  me  along.  This  is  all  really  too 
beautiful,  and  I  don't  know  iwhether  I  am  right  in  telling  you  every- 
thing, as  I  myself  fear  that  Fate  will  not  permit  me  so  much  bliss. 

My  life  plan,  at  present,  is  as  follows:  At  the  beginning  of 
vacation,  I  contemplate  taking  my  doctor's  examination;  during  vaca- 
tion I  shall  write  my  dissertation,  and  around  Christmas  I  will 
permit  the  doctor's  cap  to  be  placed  upon  my  head.  I  shall  stay 
here  throughout  this  winter  and  work  hard,  and  after  Easter  I  shall 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

go  to  Berlin  to  prepare  for  the  State  Examination.  I  shall  next  look 
for  a  place  and  try  to  advance  as  rapidly  as  possible,  then  shall 
marry  a  young,  beautiful,  wise  and  rich  girl,  who  speaks  French, 
plays  the  piano  and  knows  how  to  manage  horses. 

Now  I  beg  you  to  let  me  have  your  opinion  regarding  these 
plans.  If  I,  perhaps,  am  a  little  broad  or  confused  in  my  explana- 
tions, you  must  forgive  me,  for  I  am  writing  this  note  in  the  class 
of  Professor  Bischoff,  whose  monotonous  phrases  ring  into  my  ears 
from  time  to  time. 

The  keen  edge  of  remorse  over  wasted  hours  never  cuts 
more  deeply  than  on  the  student's  day  of  reckoning — the  day 
of  final  examinations.  But  destiny  is  not  always  decided  in 
class  rooms.  A  student  who  passes  his  examinations  magna 
cum  laude  is  not  necessarily  successful  in  the  postgraduate 
school  of  life.  What  happens  to  all  the  valedictorians?  Many 
of  them  become  employees  of  men  who  failed  in  college.  It 
would  be  piquant  to  recite  a  list  of  celebrated  individuals  who 
were  the  despair  of  their  forgotten  teachers.  Nevertheless,  it 
should  not  be  considered  discreditable  to  pass  with  the  highest 
marks.  An  examiner  who  perused  Henle's  papers,  expressed 
himself  to  the  effect  that  during  his  lifetime  he  had  not  seen 
their  equal,  and  Johannes  Miiller  was  so  impressed  that  he 
invited  the  brilliant  graduate  to  accompany  him  on  his  long- 
planned  visit  to  Paris. 

It  is  a  prize  platitude  to  say  that  there  is  something  about 
a  trip  to  Paris  which  appeals  to  everyone.  It  is  not  difficult, 
therefore,  to  imagine  Henle's  joy;  he  was  naturally  of  an  en- 
thusiastic temperament,  and  to  travel  with  Miiller  was  the 


THE  MEDICAL  STUDENT  35 

rarest  of  privileges.  Arrived  in  Paris,  the  two  Germans  con- 
versed only  in  French,  and  swelled  the  applause  at  numerous 
operas  and  theatres.  Henle  was  not  pleased  with  the  French — 
that  is,  with  the  male  portion,  but  he  chanted  paens  of  praise 
for  the  French  girls,  asserting  that  in  grace,  dress  and  poise, 
they  could  serve  as  models  for  all  Europe. 

At  Miiller's  approach,  the  laboratories  and  cabinets  of 
the  French  naturalists  opened  in  welcome.  Cuvier,  who  was 
then  the  potentate  of  French  science,  placed  his  own  work- 
room at  the  disposal  of  Miiller  and  Henle.  Miiller,  who 
achieved  immortality  on  a  frog's  back,  had  proved  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  Bell-Magendie  theory  of  the  spinal  nerve-roots, 
and  he  invited  several  distinguished  Frenchmen  to  witness  his 
demonstration.  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  who  was  in  Paris 
at  the  time,  was  also  invited,  and  Henle,  who  of  course  as- 
sisted in  the  experiments,  has  left  us  this  glimpse  of  his  illus- 
trious countryman: 

Humboldt  has  gone  again  bien  satisfait  des  jolies  manoeuvers 
which  we  had  the  honor  to  perform  before  him.  He  claimed  to  be 
delighted  at  having  made  my  acquaintance,  which,  probably,  was 
just  prattle,  and  he  told  me  the  story  of  a  young  man,  whom  I 
didn't  know,  that  he  had  married,  regarding  which  I  expressed  in- 
human joy.  At  the  end  he  left  five  francs,  most  probably  a  tip  for 
me.  I,  however,  brought  the  money  proudly  back  to  him,  and  in 
return  for  this  I  received  my  handkerchief,  which  he  pocketed  by 
oversight.  He  brought  with  him  a  number  of  other  prominent  sci- 
entists, whom  I  now  know  personally,  and  upon  my  return  to  Bonn, 
I  shall  have  something  to  boast  of.  You  should  have  seen  the  way 
we  fixed  up  our  poor  room  for  the  reception  of  these  important 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

guests.  First  of  all  we  put  everything  in  order.  But  then  we 
found  that  a  hole  in  a  chair,  there  a  tear  in  the  table-cover,  had 
to  be  covered  with  books,  and  so  we  chose  the  system  of  artistic 
disorder,  as  we  preferred  to  appear  careless  rather  than  poor;  it 
of  course  would  have  been  differently  arranged,  if  dear  mother  had 
announced  that  she  would  visit  us.  His  Honor,  the  Minister,  was 
placed  upon  an  armchair  covered  with  red  flowered  velvet  cloth, 
the  other  gentlemen  on  similar  chairs  only  filled  with  feathers,  so 
their  dignity  might  sink  a  little  deeper.  Miiller  and  I  camped  on 
two  cane  chairs,  which  together  numbered  seven  legs.  We  two 
were  dressed  entirely  in  black,  including  our  linens,  as  our  femme 
blanchisseuse  disappointed  us  perfidement. 

Upon  his  return  to  Bonn,  Henle  worked  with  such  dili- 
gence upon  his  doctor's  thesis  that  some  of  his  friends  were 
neglected — but  when  evening  came,  he  found  time  to  sing 
with  Frau  Nanni.  Henle's  increasing  intimacy  with  Miiller 
may  be  sensed  from  certain  passages  in  his  description  of 
his  graduating  exercises: 

Graduation  has  occurred,  and  was  very  solemn.  I  appeared  in 
Muller's  breeches  and  my  own  calves,  which  excited  general  admira- 
tion  The  dissertation  met  with  much  approval,  and  I  myself, 

am  satisfied  with  it.  As  I  remarked,  I  am  getting  always  friendlier 
with  Miiller,  and  our  mutual  tenderness  is  reaching  the  stage  of  mush. 

Instead  of  the  usual  graduation  dissertation — an  academic 
review  of  ancient  and  modern  opinions  on  a  given  subject — 
Henle  presented  his  teachers  a  research-essay  based  on  his 
own  dissections  of  the  optic  membranes  in  man  and  various 
animals.  Henle's  De  membrana  pupillari  aliisque  oculi  membranis 
pillucentibus  was  not  a  thesis  wrung  from  an  unwilling  student 
by  the  exigencies  of  graduation,  but  a  contribution  to  science 
that  foretokened  a  future  discoverer. 


Ill 

ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN 

One  obstacle  still  lay  in  Henle's  path — the  State  Exami- 
nation. The  young  man  sighed  as  he  thought  of  it,  for  this 
meant  an  enforced  renewal  of  his  acquaintance  with  subjects 
which  no  longer  interested  him — symptoms,  diagnosis  and 
treatment.  Dr.  Henle  had  nothing  to  do  with  practical  medi- 
cine. The  clinic  was  now  foreign  territory  to  him — his  home 
was  the  laboratory.  Besides,  the  State  Examination  could 
be  taken  only  in  Berlin,  and  thus  it  was  necessary  to  part  from 
Miiller,  whose  note  of  farewell  lay  before  him: 

It  is  true,  then,  my  dear  Henle,  that  you  are  to  go.  I  miss 
your  dear  society,  but  I  know  that  you  have  left  us  that  you  may 
progress  further.  I  hope  to  hear  from  you  real  often.  I  shall  cer- 
tainly not  let  you  wait  for  an  answer.  Go  then,  accompanied  by 
a  thousand  good  wishes  and  by  our  love,  and  return  to  us  the  same 
affectionate  friend. 

Henle  entered  Berlin  a  stranger,  but  armed  with  Miiller's 
letters  of  introduction  to  such  scientists  as  Rudolphi,  Schlemm, 
Dieffenbach  and  Romberg;  from  his  father,  Henle  carried 
letters  to  commercial  and  juristic  groups.  A  man  who  relies 
upon  letters  of  introduction  for  his  friendships,  is  apt  to  be 
solitary — but  Henle  was  always  a  social  animal.  Merkel  says 

37 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

that  when  Henle  was  a  short  time  in  Berlin,  the  circle  of  his 
acquaintances  changed  considerably,  for  the  families  to  whom 
he  had  been  recommended,  receded  into  the  background,  and 
the  friends  he  found  for  himself,  stepped  into  their  places. 

Among  these  friends  was  a  certain  Fraulein  whose  charms 
effaced  the  memory  of  Malchen.  It  is  asserted  that  Henle  was 
infatuated  at  first  sight — "a  glance  from  her  was  lightning  and 
j.  thunderbolt  at  the  same  time" — and  he  was  fully  determined 
to  ask  her  in  marriage  as  soon  as  he  obtained  an  income.  Some 
women  wait,  and  others  don't.  While  Henle  wooed  and  post- 
poned, a  landed  proprietor  wooed  and  proposed — with  the 
usual  success  of  wealthy  men.  This  was  Henle's  second  shock, 
but  Wertherism  was  antiquated,  and  suicide  did  not  follow. 
On  the  contrary,  within  a  short  time  he  wrote  that  he  experi- 
enced the  sensations  of  a  bird  on  a  branch  who  peeps  into  the 
room  where  stands  his  late  cage. 

Another  friend  of  this  period  was  Felix  Mendelssohn.  It 
was  Henle's  privilege  to  witness  the  origin  and  development 
of  some  of  his  compositions,  and  the  musician  became  so  at- 
tached to  the  scientist,  that  when  he  passed  through  Coblenz, 
he  paid  a  special  visit  to  Henle's  family.  Sister  Marie's  talent 
for  music  eclipsed  even  her  brother's,  and  Mendelssohn  en- 
chanted her  with  a  private  performance  of  the  overture  to 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  which  he  had  composed  in  his 
seventeenth  year,  and  which  carried  him  to  fame's  pinnacle. 
Some  years  later,  Henle  and  Mendelssohn  might  have  been 
related  by  marriage,  but  when  Henle  proposed  to  one  of  the 
Mendelssohn  girls,  he  discovered  she  was  already  secretly 
betrothed. 


ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN  39 

In  spite  of  the  imposing  examination  which  loomed  before 
him,  Henle  entered  into  the  social  life  of  Berlin  with  zest.  He 
was  always  good  company;  he  could  chat  superficially  on 
trivial  topics,  knew  how  to  play  whist  with  the  ladies,  how  to 
drink  tea  leisurely,  and  how  to  smoke  a  pipe  comfortably. 

He  would  have  been  content,  if  only  Miiller  could  have 
been  with  him — and  then,  with  dramatic  suddenness,  Miiller 
did  come  to  Berlin,  for  Rudolphi,  the  professor  of  anatomy  and 
physiology  in  the  University  of  Berlin,  unexpectedly  died,  and 
Johannes  Miiller  was  appointed  his  successor,  thus  becoming, 
in  his  early  thirties,  the  central  figure  of  German 
medicine.  Miiller  and  Henle  hailed  each  other  with  joy  and 
a  renewal  of  their  friendship  meant  a  renewal  of  work. 
Miiller  now  founded  his  epoch-making  Archives  of  Anatomy, 
Physiology,  and  Scientific  Medicine,  familiarly  called  Miiller's 
Archiv,  which  was  the  most  influential  journal  of  its  kind 
until  displaced  by  the  periodical  founded  by  one  of  Miiller's 
pupils — Virchow's  Archiv.  Henle's  name  appeared  conspicu- 
ously in  the  prospectus  of  Miiller's  Archiv;  he  was,  in  fact, 
the  managing  editor.  Miiller  drew  Henle  still  closer  to  him 
by  appointing  him  his  assistant  at  the  anatomical  museum. 
Henle  went  through  the  state  examination  without  mishap,  and 
soon  celebrated  his  release  by  writing  articles  for  medical  dic- 
tionaries and  encyclopedias,  and  by  immersing  himself  in 
research. 

Now  that  Henle  was  a  teacher,  every  academic  upheaval 
interested  him — he  might  be  appointed.  When  Ratke  was  called 
from  Dorpat  to  Halle,  as  successor  to  the  deceased  Meckel, 
Henle  reasoned  as  follows : 


40  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

Through  this  the  professorship  in  Dorpat  is  open,  and  as  Russia 
likes  to  recruit  from  here,  and  as  there  is  hardly  a  surplus  of  physi- 
ologists, it  is  possible  that  I  will  get  the  place  at  Dorpat. 

While  waiting  for  a  stray  professor's  chair,  Henle  deemed 
it  expedient  to  utilize  his  artistic  talent  by  offering  his  ser- 
vices to  the  academy  of  art,  and  he  wrote  his  parents  an  ac- 
count of  his  adventures  in  pursuit  of  this  position : 

I  was  glad  to  give  you  pleasure  by  my  appointment  as  prosector, 
especially  as  the  joyous  expectation  of  the  other  post  may  not  be 
realized.  I  shall  have  to  tell  you  the  entire  procedure,  so  not  to 
have  you  think  that  I  am  as  frivolous  as  may  appear.  When  the 
place  became  vacant  about  three  months  ago,  I  foresaw  but  one 
who  could  contest  it  with  me,  and  that  was  my  friend  Froriep.  I 
went  to  him  and  spoke  as  Abraham  spoke  to  Lot:  If  you  wish 
to  apply  for  this  position,  let  us  not  be  enemies;  you  have  the  quali- 
fications for  it,  you  are  a  good  draughtsman  and  a  pater  familias, 
and  therefore,  I  shall  step  aside,  although  I  have  been  requested  to 
apply.  My  behavior  at  the  time  was  considered  noble.  After  much 
controversy  Froriep  wrote  to  his  father — it  must  be  said  a  real  poli- 
tician— who  advised  him  not  to  apply — that  is,  never  mind  the  400 
thalers.  Froriep  confessed  to  me  that  he  was  heartily  pleased  over 
this,  as  he  need  not  consider  the  income,  and  the  work  at  the 
academy  would  distract  him.  I  apply  and  all  is  well.  I  leave,  I 
return,  I  inquire,  and  Privy  Councellor  Schultz,  Professor  Rauch, 
and  Director  Schadow,  all  assure  me  that  I  will  be  successful.  Only 
the  matter  proceeds  slowly,  for  the  Minister  needs  time,  as  always. 
All  of  a  sudden,  old  Froriep  appears,  calls  upon  the  Minister  and 
the  Councellors,  and  my  friend  sadly  informs  me  that  he  is  com- 
pelled to  make  an  application  for  the  post 

My  view  of  the  affair,  as  f ar  ;as  I  am  able  to  judge,  is  this:  old 
man  Froriep  informs  the  authorities  that  his  son  has  been  professor 


ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN  41 

for  three  years,  and  still  receives  no  salary.  The  Minister  recognizes 
his  complaint  as  Just,  and  even  if  he  does  not,  he  agrees  with  old 
Froriep,  with  whom  he  is  on  good  terms.  The  Minister,  however, 
as  always,  has  no  money  to  dispose  of.  Then  he  reminds  himself 
of  the  yet  unfilled  post  at  the  academy  of  art,  with  400  thalers  at- 
tached. I,  the  only  applicant,  am  a  young  unmarried  man,  who  has 
just  entered  into  State  service,  and  already  has  a  salary  of  500 
thalers,  and  I  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  this.  The  academy's  400 
may  be  utilized  to  stop  the  mouth  of  some  one  else  for  the  time 
being,  and  Papa  Froriep  brings  home  with  him  a  request  and,  most 
probably,  a  promise  of  success.  Whether  it  is  right  for  Froriep  to 
take  back  his  promise  and  compete  with  me,  I  shall  not  try  to  judge. 
If  it  is  a  crooked  way,  then  it  is  the  old  man's  fault,  and 'I  have  set 
my  pride  upon  it,  that  our  friendship  shall  not  be  shattered  on  this 
rock.  I  told  Froriep  that  I  shall  pursue  my  course  as  I  have  begun, 
as  I  may  be  able  to  use  even  a  negative  answer  for  the  future.  I 
have  not,  however,  attempted  to  use  any  subterranean  means,  and 
our  applications  lay  fraternally  together  before  the  Minister.  You 
can  readily  understand  that  under  these  circumstances  there  is  little 
hope  for  me. 

My  relationship  with  Mttller  is  such  as  I  imagined  it,  and  that 
is  saying  a  great  deal,  as  I  imagined  something  very  beautiful.  I 
always  seek  to  do  more  than  is  expected  of  me.  ...  I  see  more  and 
more,  what  an  invaluable  treasure,  the  tested  friendship  of  this  ex- 
cellent man  really  is.  I  now  have  an  assistant,  rin  the  person  of 
little  Friedlander,  whom  you  know.  He  assists  me  with  my  work 
when  necessary  and  in  return  for  this,  he  enjoys  my  special  instruc- 
tion in  dissection,  and  in  return  for  this  again  I  enjoy  an  occasional 
dinner  with  his  parents.  He  is  very  industrious  and  modest,  and  I 
think  we  shall  be  satisfied  with  each  other. 

The  diplomacy  of  the  elder  Froriep  was  successful,  and 
Henle  reported  to  his  parents : 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

The  academic  affair  is  finally  decided,  and  it  has  brought  me  a 
great  deal  of  disquietude  and  some  pleasure.  I  realized  very  soon 
that  this  was  not  the  time  to  indulge  in  high-minded  sentiments,  and 
without  giving  myself  any  false  hopes,  I  determined  to  bring  my 
competition  with  Froriep  into  the  open.  I,  therefore,  submitted  my 
drawings  to  the  academy,  and  personally  called  upon  the  individual 
members  of  the  senate,  and  found  that  they  were  unanimously  in 
my  favor,  as  they  considered  me  especially  qualified  for  the  post,  and 
they  requested  the  Minister  to  appoint  me. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Minister,  paying  no  attention  to  their  wishes, 
appointed  Froriep  temporarily.  The  entire  academy  resents  this  act, 
and  there  is  talk  of  protest.  That  of  course  would  be  futile,  as 
the  Minister  will  not  alter  his  decision.  It  is,  however,  enough 
satisfaction  to  me,  and  in  other  respects  may  prove  very  useful,  as 
you  can  readily  see  that  the  Minister  will  have  to  make  good  this 
injustice  done  to  me.  In  fact,  when  I  called  upon  him  recently,  he 
was  very  cordial  and  promised  to  see  to  it  that  I  should  better  my 
position  through  a  more  scientific  occupation,  than  that  which  was 
recently  vacant  at  the  art  academy.  According  to  this,  I  can  even 
demand  an  extraordinary  professorship,  and  that  certainly  would 
be  more  advantageous  to  me  than  the  little  distracting  by-office. 
On  the  whole,  I  can  say  that  my  old  luck  has  not  deserted  me.  I 
gained,  if  not  in  money,  in  prestige,  and  I  can  step  forth  with  un- 
sullied pride,  side  by  side  with  my  successful  competitor,  and  the 
fact  that  our  friendly  relationship  has  not  suffered  through  this 
affair,  is  something  which,  all  who  know  the  circumstances,  count 
in  my  favor.  Miiller  says  he  is  glad  for  his  and  my  sake  that  I  did 
not  appeal,  and  that  too  is  of  importance. 

When  Henle  applied  to  the  authorities  for  formal  habili- 
tation  as  privat  decent,  he  expected  a  routine  confirmation  in 
due  course  of  time.  In  reply  he  received  an  unpleasant  re- 
minder that  he  was  an  ex-Burschenschafter,  and  he  was  in- 


ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN  43 

formed  that  his  political  past  was  under  investigation.  This 
attitude  of  the  State  was  entirely  unexpected,  and  filled  Henle 
and  his  parents  with  consternation.  But  a  calm  review  of  the 
situation  relieved  their  panic,  for  they  saw  no  genuine  reason 
for  alarm.  Of  course,  the  present  misunderstanding  was  dis- 
turbing, but  after  all,  Henle's  participation  in  the  Bonn  Bursch- 
enschaft  had  been  so  slight,  his  exit  so  speedy,  his  subsequent 
devotion  to  science  so  complete,  and  his  career  so  promising, 
that  it  was  unthinkable  that  he  should  be  condemned  to  any 
punishment  severer  than  a  reprimand. 

But  society  must  be  saved,  and  church  and  state  must 
be  protected,  and  prosecutors  must  prosecute — and  there- 
fore the  criminal  inquiry  proceeded  apace.  As  the  evidence 
was  being  sifted,  exciting  rumors  leaked  through  the  sieve: 
one  day  the  academic  circles  of  Berlin  heard  that  both  Miiller 
and  Henle  had  been  arrested,  but  those  who  sought  veri- 
fication of  the  story,  found  the  professor  and  his  prosector 
at  work  in  the  Anatomical  Museum.  After  a  comparative  lull, 
Henle  would  persuade  himself  that  danger  was  over — until 
the  sudden  imprisonment  of  one  friend  after  another,  no  more 
guilty  than  himself,  stirred  new  terror  in  his  heart.  During 
this  unsettled  period,  torn  between  hope  and  fear,  uncertain 
whether  the  morrow  would  find  him  a  state  teacher  or  a 
state  prisoner,  Henle's  scientific  output  was  naturally  dimin- 
ished, but  he  produced  at  least  one  essay  which  won  the  en- 
thusiastic admiration  of  Alexander  von  Humboldt. 

In  the  meantime,  there  came  to  Henle,  a  friendly  and 
highly  respectful  letter,  from  the  Ministry  of  Dorpat,  offering 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

him  the  professorship  of  human  and  comparative  anatomy, 
zoology,  physiology,  general  pathology,  and  pathological  anat- 
omy. However,  there  was  compensation  for  this  work,  for 
the  letter  explained  that  after  twenty-five  years  of  service, 
the  professor  is  retired  with  full  salary,  "which  he  may  spend 
where  he  pleases,"  and  after  his  death,  his  widow  receives 
a  pension. 

The  latter  item  held  little  lure  for  a  bachelor,  and  Henle's 
reply  was  indefinite.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  second  of 
July,  1835,  as  Henle  lay  comfortably  in  bed,  dreaming  per- 
haps of  the  Dorpat  proposition,  unexpected  visitors  entered 
his  room.  In  that  summer  dawn,  they  affixed  seals  to  the 
door,  and  took  Henle  with  them.  Throughout  the  day,  Miiller 
waited  in  vain  for  his  prosector,  for  he  had  been  transferred 
to  the  most  famous  institution  in  Berlin — the  Hausvogtei. 
His  cell  swarmed  with  vermin,  there  was  nothing  to  read  ex- 
cept the  Bible,  no  one  came  to  see  him,  and  he  did  not  have 
a  cigar. 

A  landlady  is  usually  ubiquitous,  but  unfortunately,  the 
sympathetic  Frau  Hegel  failed  to  live  up  to  the  tradition ;  when 
the  police  arrested  Henle,  instead  of  being  present,  she  was 
out  of  town,  and  the  deed  was  witnessed  only  by  the  servant- 
girl.  Now  this  servant-girl,  in  spite  of  her  humble  position, 
possessed  a  mind  corresponding  with  that  of  certain  eminent 
jurists — she  recognized  no  distinction  between  a  political 
prisoner  and  a  common  prisoner.  She  knew  that  no  good  man 
is  carried  off  at  dawn  by  the  police,  and  she  shuddered  when 
she  thought  how  often  she  had  swept  this  criminal's  room — un- 


ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN  45 

aware  of  any  danger.  As  the  day  advanced,  callers  began  to 
inquire  for  Henle,  but  ashamed  to  acknowledge  that  an  inmate 
of  her  house  was  in  the  hands  of  the  authorities,  she  covered 
the  official  seals  on  the  door-knob  with  her  apron,  and  persist- 
ently announced  that  the  doctor  was  out.  It  was  due  to  the  in- 
tervention of  this  well-intentioned  servant-girl — truly,  a  pillar 
of  society — that  Henle  passed  many  weary  hours  in  the  Haus- 
vogtei  without  seeing  a  friendly  face.  As  soon  as  his  new  resi- 
dence became  known,  numerous  friends,  with  attentions  and 
gifts,  made  his  position  as  bearable  as  the  authorities  permitted. 

During  this  episode,  the  Dorpat  officials  pressed  for  an 
answer,  and  were  startled  to  learn  that  their  intended  pro- 
fessor was  a  prisoner.  Efforts  to  have  Henle  released  from 
his  lice-laden  cell,  pending  the  result  of  the  Burschenschaft 
investigation,  were  long  unsuccessful.  Miiller,  impracticably 
lovable,  did  not  help  matters  much  by  his  constant  reiteration 
that  Henle  was  indispensable  as  a  prosector;  the  Gustav 
Magnus  family  rendered  more  effective  aid  by  their  pressure 
upon  the  proper  authorities,  but  it  was  probably  due  to  the 
powerful  intercession  of  Humboldt  that  Henle  was  liberated. 

After  four  weeks  of  prison-life,  the  genial  young  man 
again  joined  his  many  friends,  and  the  rejoicing  was  great. 
Unnumbered  visits  were  received  and  returned,  congratulations 
flowed  in  from  all  sides,  champagne  ran  like  water  for  him, 
Berlin  pancakes  were  stacked  in  hills  before  him,  men  em- 
braced him,  women  wept  with  emotion,  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
large  assemblage,  a  pretty  woman  came  forward  and  kissed 
him — and  with  characteristic  male  exultation,  Henle  notified 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

his  parents  that  for  rewards  like  this,  he  would  gladly  spend 
another  month  in  prison.  Miiller  informed  him  that  his  four 
weeks  in  the  Hausvogtei  brought  him  more  popularity  than  if 
he  had  written  a  thick  book.  The  climax  came  when  a  car- 
riage stopped  in  front  of  the  released  prisoner's  door,  and  a 
gentleman  accompanied  by  a  liveried  footman  mounted  the 
three  flights  of  stairs  that  led  to  Henle's  apartment.  The  caller 
was  one  of  the  European  powers — Alexander  von  Humboldt. 
His  wishes  altered  the  decisions  of  governments,  and  kings 
bored  him  with  their  society.  To  have  Humbolt  climb  three 
flights  of  stairs  to  see  you,  was  an  epoch  in  a  man's  career. 
But  this  drama  did  not  end  with  the  climax — it  was  followed 
by  a  farce.  In  the  liveliest  thoroughfare  of  Berlin,  the  prose- 
cutor Kamptz  greeted  Henle  affably,  and  explained  for  an 
hour  that  he  personally  was  convinced  of  the  innocence  of  the 
Burschenschafter  and  how  differently  all  would  have  been 
if  he  had  the  sole  authority — and  passers-by  could  hardly  trust 
their  eyes  when  they  saw  this  peaceful  promenade. 

Yet  the  investigation  was  by  no  means  over,  and  in  the 
harassing  months  that  followed,  Henle's  mother  went  to  her 
grave  without  knowing  what  fate  was  in  store  for  her  son. 
It  must  have  been  the  extenuating  circumstances  of  the  case 
which  kept  the  judges  so  long  at  their  task.  The  problem  was 
indeed  a  delicate  one,  for  it  required  due  exercise  of  the  judicial 
mind  to  determine  a  fitting  penalty  for  a  student  who  had 
joined  a  students'  organization,  but  instead  of  remaining  to 
plot  against  the  government,  had  withdrawn  when  he  noticed 
his  fellow-conspirators  were  too  generous  with  his  tobacco. 
It  was  not  until  the  fifth  of  January,  1837,  that  this  verdict  was 


ADVENTURES  IN  BERLIN  47 

delivered :  deprivation  of  state  office,  and  six  years'  incarcera- 
tion in  a  fortress.  If  the  sentence  seems  severe  to  us,  we  may 
console  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that  in  every  city  through- 
out civilization  today,  there  are  judges  eager  to  impose  similar 
sentences  upon  those  whom  they  deem  guilty  of  intellectual 
insubordination.  Had  Henle  been  without  protection,  his 
career  would  have  been  blasted  at  its  outset,  but  powerful 
influences  among  them  being  Humboldt,  worked  for  his  pardon, 
and  on  the  second  of  March,  the  shadow  was  lifted. 

Then  began  a  remarkable  period  of  productivity  in  which 
Henle  became  one  of  the  chief  builders  of  modern  medicine. 
His  contributions  to  Miiller's  Archiv  were  sufficient  to 
make  the  reputation  of  a  dozen  professors.  In  those  days  the 
Berlin  presses  printed  monographs,  signed  J.  Henle,  which 
opened  up  new  paths  to  science.  Had  he  never  accomplished 
anything  beyond  his  researches  from  1837  to  1840,  the  name  of 
Jacob  Henle  would  still  rank  with  the  foremost  investigators 
of  modern  times.  Yet  Henle  was  not  happy  in  Berlin.  Unable 
to  forget  the  vermin  and  the  Prussian  officials,  he  itched  for 
a  professorship  in  another  land.  When  Henle's  co-worker  in 
Miiller's  laboratory,  Theodor  Schwann,  was  appointed  pro- 
fessor in  Louvain,  Henle  watched  the  departure  of  his  young 
friend  with  envious  eyes. 

In  the  early  months  of  1840,  came  Henle's  turn:  he  re- 
ceived the  offer  of  a  professorship  in  Ziirich — and  a  hint  not 
to  interest  himself  in  Swiss  politics.  With  eagerness,  he  ac- 
cepted the  proposition,  and  set  out  for  Switzerland — and  Des- 
tiny waited  across  the  border. 


IV 
THE  ZURICH  PERIOD 

The  Switzerland  of  the  present  is  a  well-ordered  tourist's 
paradise  over  which  shines  an  array  of  Baedecker  stars,  but  in 
Henle's  time  the  beauty  of  its  lakes  was  defiled  by  politics,  and 
wrangling  men  impaired  the  majesty  of  its  mountains.  In 
Zurich,  the  controversy  was  precipitated  by  D.  F.  Strauss,  the 
storm-petrel  of  theology,  whose  Leben  Jesu — Englished  by 
George  Eliot — is  one  of  the  classics  of  freethought.  The  lib- 
erals of  Zurich,  being  temporarily  in  the  ascendant,  were  dar- 
ing enough  to  appoint  Strauss  to  the  chair  of  theology,  but  the 
threatened  invasion  of  the  Tubingen  rationalist  aroused  such 
protests,  that  although  the  administration  pensioned  Strauss 
before  he  commenced  his  duties,  the  forces  of  reaction  were 
not  appeased,  and  in  the  upheaval  that  followed,  the  conserva- 
tives rode  into  power  with  the  determination  to  punish  the 
young  university — in  revenge  for  the  invitation  to  Strauss. 
From  this  imbroglio,  Henle  was  glad  to  retreat  to  the  calmness 
of  his  dissecting-room. 

When  Henle  arrived  in  a  new  town,  before  settling  down 
to  work,  he  found  it  necessary  to  relax.  During  his  first  win- 
ter at  Zurich,  he  spent  more  time  in  the  tavern  than  at  his 

49 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

books.  His  evenings  were  a  succession  of  balls  and  entertain- 
ments, followed  by  concerts  and  theatricals.  In  one  of  his 
letters,  Henle  describes  the  Swiss  system  of  chaperonage: 

Everyone  dances.  Old  ladies,  mothers  and  aunts  are  seldom  pres- 
ent, and  if  they  are,  they  go  home  at  eleven,  and  consign  their  daugh- 
ters to  the  care  of  a  young  man  who  is  not  too  much  of  a  stranger. 
On  the  way  to  the  ball,  a  servant  precedes  with  a  lantern,  so  that  the 
stockings  should  not  be  soiled.  On  the  return,  this  foresight  is  dis- 
pensed with,  and  with  it  the  servant.  Is  this  not  idyllic? 

The  deluge  of  merriment  was  tinctured  with  adversity 
when  Henle  found  himself  compelled  to  change  his 
lodgings — because  his  landlord  Hagenbuch  expected  him  to 
court  one  of  his  daughters.  However,  Henle  had  fallen  in 
love  with  women  in  Coblenz  and  Berlin,  and  he  was  not  in- 
susceptible in  Zurich.  He  was  irresistibly  attracted  to  an 
army  captain's  daughter:  he  proposed,  and  was  accepted,  but 
the  first  cold  embrace  appalled  him.  It  soon  transpired  that 
the  girl  already  had  a  lover  whose  passion  was  on  the  wane, 
and  she  resorted  to  the  expedient  of  winning  him  back  by 
arousing  his  jealousy;  after  success  had  crowned  her  efforts, 
Henle  was  quietly  dismissed,  and  the  guileless  professor  thus 
found  himself  a  victim  of  one  of  the  oldest  tricks  in  love's 
tangled  game. 

The  ardent-hearted  Henle  was  deeply  wounded,  and 
sought  solace  in  music.  Already  skilled  on  the  violin,  he 
now  took  lessons  on  the  violincello,  and  after  mastering  the 
bass  member  of  the  family,  became  conspicuous  in  the  mu- 
sical circles  of  Zurich  as  singer,  violinist  and  'cellist.  The 
same  fingers  which. could  dissect  a  cadaver  so  adroitly,  knew 
also  the  wondrous  secrets  of  four  strings  of  catgut.  Upon 


THE  ZURICH  PERIOD  51 

one  occasion,  a  theatrical  company  to  which  Henle  belonged, 
prepared  for  a  public  performance,  and  among  the  names 
posted  on  all  street-corners  of  the  town,  was  that  of  the  ver- 
satile professor  of  anatomy.  Sober-minded  citizens,  including 
Henle  himself,  felt  that  this  was  carrying  virtuosity  too  far. 

Throughout  the  career  of  Henle,  the  golden  thread  of 
friendship  ran  unbroken,  and  it  gathered  its  richest  strands 
in  Zurich.  For  many  years  that  boorish  genius,  Johann  Lucas 
Schonlein,  made  medical  history  in  the  Swiss  city.  Typhus 
abdominalis  and  typhus  exanthematicus  are  terms  of  his  de- 
vising; he  described  peliosis  rheumatica  so  well  that  we  call 
it  Schonlein's  disease;  he  discovered  the  cause  of  favus  to  be 
achorion  Schonleinii,  and  as  he  disliked  writing,  he  described 
his  discovery  in  twenty  lines.  But  in  1840,  the  mighty  Schon- 
lein, founder  of  the  Natural  History  School  of  Medicine,  re- 
tired from  Zurich  to  reap  homage  and  money  in  Berlin,  and 
into  his  chair  climbed  the  young  clinician,  Carl  Pfeufer.  Pfeu- 
fer's  arrival  in  Zurich  coincided  with  Henle's,  and  before  long 
the  two  new  teachers  became  acquainted.  It  was  friendship 
at  first  sight,  and  with  joy  Henle  wrote : 

Pfeufer  is  one  of  the  most  charming  men  I  ever  met,  merry,  ex- 
ceptionally witty,  yet  genial,  modest  and  full  of  ambition.  He  is  young 
and  advanced  enough  to  be  able  to  discard  the  obsolete — in  other 
words,  he  is  the  man  I  need. 

The  anatomist  and  the  clinician  talked  matters  over,  and 
decided  it  was  time  to  revolutionize  science.  Accordingly 
they  founded  the  School  of  Rational  Medicine,  and  its  fearless 
mouthpiece,  "The  Journal  of  Rational  Medicine,"  trumpeted 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

abroad  the  progressive  ideas  of  its  editors,  and  blasted  many 
venerable  hypotheses  which  had  survived  from  the  days  of 
Stahl.  But  Henle's  most  important  literary  undertaking,  dur- 
ing the  Zurich  period,  was  his  "Handbook  of  General  Anat- 
omy." 

Every  university  should  be  a  capital  of  the  Republic  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  which  recognizes  neither  frontiers  nor  par- 
tisans— but  the  University  of  Zurich  lay  in  the  political  path. 
Perhaps  the  study  of  anatomy  promotes  impartiality,  for 
Henle  complained  without  bias: 

Rankling  with  fresh  hatred,  the  two  antagonistic  parties,  the  aris- 
tocratic-religious and  radical,  face  each  other,  and  both  are  tearing  us 
apart:  the  reactionaries  inquire  whether  the  university  is  worth  its 
expense,  and  the  radicals,  who  consider  themselves  the  enlightened 
ones,  resent  our  non-partisan  attitude ....  Even  with  diligence,  patience 
and  ability,  it  will  never  be  possible  to  make  anything  out  of  our 
university  in  the  face  of  such  a  struggle..  There  is  only  one  good  side 
to  the  situation,  and  that  is  that  we  all  stand  solidly  together.  Many 
little  animosities  and  much  raillery  have  been  forgotten  in  the  face 
of  the  common  foe,  and  we  spend  the  beautiful  summer  evenings  and 
Sundays  out  in  the  open,  and  amuse  ourselves  by  scolding  and  jests 
at  the  expense  of  the  powers  that  be. 

Henle's  passage  through  the  university  was  marked  by  £ 
series  of  calms  and  tempests,  but  each  time  he  triumphantly 
reached  his  goal.  When  entering  upon  his  duties,  he  was 
much  pleased  with  the  new  and  practical  anatomy-building, 
but  was  disconcerted  to  learn  that  one  microscope  had  to 
serve  for  all  students.  The  authorities  came  to  the  rescue 
by  permitting  him  to  order  another,  and  they  placed  at  his 


THE  ZURICH  PERIOD  53 

disposal  the  sum  of  480  Swiss  francs  to  be  spent  exclusively 
upon  instruments. 

Henle  was  greeted  a  trifle  pompously,  yet  affably 
enough,  by  his  prosector,  and  this  assistant  would  have  suf- 
ficed for  most  professors,  but  Henle  never  considered  a  pre- 
tentious demeanor  a  substitute  for  anatomical  knowledge. 
During  a  certain  semester,  he  intimated  that  his  prosector  be 
removed  to  another  department,  and  after  adding  a  few  other 
suggestions  in  the  form  of  an  ultimatum,  Henle  went  upon 
his  summer  vacation — little  expecting  to  resume  his  chair,  for 
authorities  are  usually  deaf  in  the  presence  of  requests.  Upon 
his  return  in  the  autumn,  to  his  surprise  he  found  that  all  his 
wishes  had  been  met:  the  appropriation  for  the  collection  of 
comparative  anatomy  had  been  secured,  and  not  only  had  the 
prosector  been  transferred,  but  in  his  place  was  Albert  K61- 
liker. 

From  that  moment  Henle  became  a  great  teacher,  because 
he  had  a  great  pupil.  Kolliker  was  a  Ziiricher  with  a  Heidel- 
berg diploma,  but  his  real  education  was  gained  in  Berlin 
where  he  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Johannes  Miiller,  and  during 
his  prosectorship  under  Henle  he  contributed  to  Miiller's 
Archiv  a  monograph  in  which  he  carried  the  Schleiden- 
Schwann  cell-theory  into  embryology,  being  among  the  ear- 
liest investigators  to  recognize  the  ovum  as  a  single  cell,  and 
treating  segmentation  simply  as  normal  cell  division.  Henle 
had  discovered  unstriated  muscle  in  blood-vessel  walls,  but 
Kolliker  was  the  first  who  succeeded  in  isolating  it,  and  demon- 
strated that  smooth  muscle  is  composed  of  nucleated  muscle- 
cells.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  Leeuwenhoek  described 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

the  spermatozoa,  but  it  was  left  for  Kolliker  to  explain  their 
true  development,  and  he  again  recalled  Leeuwenhoek  when 
he  increased  our  knowledge  of  the  branched  muscle  plates  of 
the  heart  which  had  first  been  seen  by  the  Delft  microscopist. 

Kolliker  extended  Corti's  discoveries  in  the  histology  of 
the  ear,  and  was  the  first  to  supply  a  satisfactory  description 
of  the  fibrous  layer  of  the  substantia  propria  of  the  iris.  K61- 
liker's  proof  that  nerve-fibres  are  continuous  with  nerve-cells 
was  sufficient  to  establish  an  immortal  reputation,  and  it  is 
perhaps  in  the  minute  anatomy  of  the  brain  and  spinal  cord 
that  Kolliker  accomplished  his  most  valuable  work:  the  neu- 
roglia  is  known  as  Kolliker's  reticulum,  the  ganglion-cells  are 
spoken  of  as  Kolliker's  tract  cells,  and  the  gray  matter  sur- 
rounding the  spinal  canal  is  eponymized  into  Kolliker's  nu- 
cleus. The  journal  of  zoology  which  he  edited  for  half  a  cen- 
tury, his  treatise  on  comparative  embryology,  and  his  text- 
books on  microscopic  anatomy  and  human  histology — the 
first  comprehensive  works  on  the  subject — were  replete  with 
his  unnumbered  researches  and  discoveries. 

It  has  truthfully  been  said  of  Kolliker — or  von  Kolliker, 
as  he  became  in  his  age — that  "there  is  no  fragment  of  the 
body  of  man  on  which  he  did  not  leave  his  mark,"  and  that 
"he  knew  more  by  direct  personal  observation  of  the  micro- 
scopic structure  of  animals  than  any  one  else  who  has  ever 
lived."  He  was  one  of  the  greatest  histologists  of  all  time, 
and  one  of  the  chief  creators  of  its  modern  phase.  With  the 
exception  of  his  prosectorship,  and  later  professorship, 
in  his  native  Zurich,  Kolliker's  academic  life  was  passed  in 


THE  ZURICH  PERIOD  55 

Wiirzburg.  He  has  not  lodged  in  the  imposing  palace  whose 
walls  took  twenty  years  to  complete,  built  for  Bavarian 
bishops  and  grand-dukes  in  imitation  of  Versailles,  but  with 
the  microscope  which  he  brought  to  the  archaic  town,  Kb'lli- 
ker  built  temples  of  science  where  succeeding  generations 
shall  dwell. 

The  only  time  a  professor  feels  really  independent  is 
when  he  receives  a  call  from  another  university,  and  when 
Henle  was  invited  to  Tubingen  it  was  a  signal  for  another 
ultimatum,  although  on  this  occasion  his  demands  were  more 
on  behalf  of  his  colleagues  than  for  his  own  department. 
Zurich,  which  had  lost  Schonlein,  determined  to  keep  Henle, 
and  so  prompt  was  its  compliance  with  Henle's  wishes,  that 
he  leaned  back  in  satisfaction  and  wrote : 

I  decide  to  remain.  I  would  have  to  give  up  dear  friends,  a  mag- 
nificent country,  pleasant  neighbors  in  Bern  and  Basel,  and  a  brand- 
new  anatomy,  a  large  hospital,  surplus  of  cadaver,  good  beer,  an  excellent 
servant,  a  prospect  of  numerous  visits,  leisure  for  work  and  much  else. 

Here  was  a  profusion  of  reasons  for  remaining  on  Swiss 
soil,  and  yet  Henle  left  unnamed  the  prime  reason — Pfeufer. 
The  friendship  between  these  two  men  had  grown  until  it 
could  no  longer  be  uprooted;  socially  and  scientifically,  the 
founders  of  the  School  of  Rational  Medicine  were  indispensa- 
ble to  each  other.  Pfeufer,  the  practitioner,  could  keep 
abreast  of  all  anatomical  and  physiological  researches  by 
merely  consulting  Henle;  and  Henle  the  scientist,  could  un- 
dertake an  elaborate  treatise  on  general  pathology  without 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

visiting  a   sick-bed,   as  long  as   he  had   the  benefit   of  the 
clinical  experience  and  diagnostic  keenness  of  Pfeufer. 

So  Henle  sent  to  Tubingen  a  letter  of  declination,  and 
its  ink  had  hardly  dried  when  Pfeufer  received  a  letter  which 
caused  fresh  excitement — a  call  to  Heidelberg;  and  the  situa- 
tion was  further  complicated  when  Tubingen  answered  that 
it  would  not  consider  Henle's  refusal  as  final.  Once  more 
arguments  were  weighed  and  plans  measured,  and  again  they 
tried  to  read  the  secrets  of  the  future,  but  mature  delibera- 
tion simply  served  to  bring  the  two  friends  back  to  their 
starting-point:  the  thought  of  separation  was  unthinkable: 
Henle  said  No  to  Tubingen,  and  Pfeufer  said  No  to  Heidel- 
berg. 

The  students  of  Zurich  expressed  their  gratification  at 
the  decision  by  a  torchlight  procession  in  joint  celebration  of 
the  two  professors.  Leaning  out  of  his  window,  Pfeufer 
thanked  them  for  their  speech,  while  the  genial  Henle 
descended  to  the  street,  and  expressed  his  joy  that  he  was 
in  the  midst  of  sympathetic  colleagues  and  of  students  who 
were  not  merely  concerned  to  acquire  the  superficial  ability 
to  practice,  but  desired  to  lay  a  scientific  foundation  under- 
neath the  superstructure  of  medicine.  The  flaming  torches 
and  the  full-throated  cheers  replied  with  enthusiasm,  and 
Henle  and  Pfeufer  seemed  destined  to  become  the  veterans 
of  the  Zurich  faculty. 

A  few  years  previous,  Henle  had  vainly  scanned  the 
academic  horizon  for  a  chair,  but  now  alluring  seats  were 
offered  him.  Tiedemann,  the  ageing  anatomist  of  Heidel- 


THE  ZURICH  PERIOD  57 

berg,  was  anxious  to  secure  Henle  as  his  associate,  but  know- 
ing that  Henle  would  not  stir  without  Pfeufer,  it  occurred  to 
Tiedemann  to  bring  Pfeufer  along  too.  Together  the  friends 
were  invited,  together  they  accepted,  and  in  1844  they  became 
members  of  the  Heidelberg  faculty. 


V 
ELISE    EGLOFF 

Confidential  as  was  the  relationship  between  these  men, 
Pfeufer  could  not  guess  that  Henle  was  motivated  to  leave 
Zurich  at  this  time  because  there  was  a  woman  in  the  case. 
During  a  considerable  portion  of  his  Swiss  sojourn,  Henle 
lived  in  the  house  of  his  friend  Loewig  the  chemist,  in  whose 
employ  was  a  pretty  nursemaid,  named  Elise  Egloff.  A  man 
frequently  imagines  that  a  girl  yearns  for  him  when  she  only 
finds  him  ridiculous,  and  when  a  girl  really  loves  him  he  is 
apt  to  overlook  it — until  some  one  tells  him. 

Henle  had  proposed  marriage  to  several  women  who 
despised  him  for  his  meagre  pocket-book,  and  he  did  not  see 
that  Elise  Egloff  trembled  with  joy  whenever  she  was  per- 
mitted to  serve  him  at  table,  and  he  could  not  know  that  when 
he  played  the  piano  or  raised  his  voice  in  song,  behind  the 
closed  door  stood  a  woman  listening  with  tears  of  passionate 
rapture.  Elise  guarded  her  emotions  as  carefully  as  she  could, 
and  Henle  himself  probably  never  would  have  stumbled  upon 
the  truth,  but  the  girl's  condition  could  not  escape  the  vigi- 
lant eye  of  Frau  Loewig. 

59 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

One  day  she  informed  Henle  that  her  maid  was  in  love 
with  him,  and  then  impersonally  called  his  attention  to  Elise's 
goodness  and  unusual  beauty,  never  imagining  that  anything 
could  ever  bridge  the  social  chasm  which  separated  the  young 
servant-girl  from  the  great  scientist.  But  as  the  man  listened 
to  the  words  of  Frau  Loewig,  the  heart  within  him  leaped, 
and  he  was  eager  to  begin  an  affair  with  Elise  Egloff.  Cer- 
tainly he  did  not  contemplate  marriage,  in  fact,  he  could  not 
explain  what  he  expected,  but  his  aroused  instincts  responded 
to  sex-lure.  Smilingly  he  entered  into  a  light  flirtation,  but 
after  the  first  careless  step  he  could  not  retreat,  for  the  fires 
of  love  blocked  his  path.  In  his  graphic  and  matchless  man- 
ner, Henle  described  the  unexpected  turn  of  events: 

My  Lisette,  was  a  dear  prattling  Gretchen;  I  was  learned  and  ripe 
enough  for  Faust,  and  bewitched  enough.  But  Mephistopheles  was 
missing,  and  there  occurred  the  most  ludicruous  thing  that  could  ever 
happen  to  a  worldly  cavalier  in  a  relationship  of  this  kind.  I 
interested  myself  not  only  in  the  girl's  beauty  but  also  in  her  soul. 
I  was  won  by  her  honesty,  her  kindness,  her  warmth  and  also  her 
pride,  which  was  doubly  becoming  to  her  because  she  felt  her  depend- 
ent position  and  bore  it  with  resignation. 

Since  it  is  not  considered  proper  for  unwedded  lovers  to 
dwell  under  the  same  roof,  Elise  left  the  service  of  the  Loe- 
wigs,  and  supported  herself  as  a  seamstress,  and  in  this  capa- 
city still  came  occasionally  to  Frau  Loewig.  The  intensity  of 
her  feelings  caused  her  such  deep  suffering,  that  the  alarmed 
Henle  instituted  himself  her  protector,  and  sought  to  deliver 
fatherly  advice:  he  assured  her  that  the  most  sensible  thing 


ELISE  EGLOFF  61 

she  could  do  would  be  to  forget  him,  and  he  pointed  out  that 
it  would  be  best  if  she  secured  a  position  with  a  reliable 
family  in  some  other  town.  So  they  agreed  to  part,  but  in 
spite  of  their  repeated  resolve  never  to  meet  again,  their  mu- 
tual passion  swept  them  closer  and  closer  together.  The  abyss 
that  divided  them  was  wide,  and  seemingly  impassable,  while 
the  whirlpool  of  society's  prejudice  eddied  underneath  ready 
to  engulf  all  who  approached — but  it  was  bridged  by  Elise's 
gentle  hand.  From  the  tender  clasp,  Henle  could  not  with- 
draw, and  in  an  illuminating  passage  he  explains  the  situa- 
tion: 

It  was  too  late,  and  the  gayly-made  acquaintance  now  became  a 
deep  fountain  of  doubt  for  her  and  a  great  distress  for  me.  For  weeks 
I  would  avoid  her;  but  when  I  saw  her  again,  pale  and  thin,  and  I 
heard  from  the  Loewigs  how  changed  she  was,  and  that  they  feared 
she  was  in  a  bad  way,  then  I  sought  her  out  again  and  thought  of 
nothing  else  but  of  consoling  her  and  of  trying  to  convince  her  to 
accept  the  untroubled  present  without  thinking  of  the  future.  We 
had  seen  each  other  a  few  times  again,  when  I  received  a  letter  from 
her  friend,  in  which  she  implored  me  to  leave  EKse,  and  described  her 
deplorable  condition. 

I  had  never  experienced  anything  so  humiliating,  or  that  shamed 
me  so  much,  and  I  decided  that  things  must  change  at  any  price.  We 
agreed  that  she  was  to  leave  Zurich,  and  I  advised  her  to  go  to  the 
French  Switzerland  and  later  to  take  a  position  with  a  good  family. 
A  few  days  later,  when  I  saw  her  again  in  the  Botanical  Garden — the 
place  we  had  appointed  for  our  rendezvous — sne  had  upset  all  these 
plans:  she  could  not  leave  Zurich;  as  long  as  she  was  able,  a  few  times 
a  week  to  pass  by  my  hearth  and  see  the  fire  burning  there,  she  would 
be  happy. 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

In  the  meantime  Henle  received  the  call  to  Heidelberg, 
and  out  of  his  confused  sensations  arose  one  clear  inspiration : 
Elise  already  possessed  more  charm  and  beauty  than  many  a 
high-born  dame ;  she  was  untaught  but  intelligent,  and  though 
she  knew  how  to  suffer,  she  loved  life.  Why  not  take  this 
charming  creature  to  Germany  with  him,  and  have  her  min- 
gle with  well-bred  folks  until  she  acquired  the  education  and 
proprieties  that  would  fit  her  to  become  Frau  Professor?  It 
was  a  hazardous  experiment,  but  Henle  felt  that  only  in  this 
way  could  he  assure  himself  of  a  happy,  or — if  the  experi- 
ment failed — at  least,  of  an  unreproachful  future. 

Henle  was  accustomed  to  solve  physiological  experiments 
by  his  own  resources,  but  in  this  present  problem,  with  its 
human  entanglements  and  uncertainties,  he  turned  helplessly 
to  his  sister  Marie,  announcing  to  her  that  he  had  a  protege 
in  Traben  for  whom  he  felt  a  philanthropic  interest.  A  portion 
of  this  statement  was  true,  for  in  the  spring  of  1844,  Henle  had 
placed  Elise  in  the  little  town  on  the  Moselle  to  undergo  her 
preliminary  training  before  passing  into  Marie's  hands,  but  he 
neglected  to  inform  Marie  that  some  day  he  intended  to  many 
Elise.  However,  he  confessed  his  secret  to  Marie's  husband, 
Mathieu,  and  indeed  it  was  his  friendly  brother-in-law  who 
helped  to  locate  Elise  in  Traben-on-the-Moselle,  and  rendered 
further  aid  by  concocting  a  fantastic  story  regarding  Elise's 
origin. 

Henle  knew  Mathieu  from  the  days  when  they  were  boys 
together  in  Coblenz,  and  Malchen  Zeiller's  rosy  face  seemed — 
to  young  Jacob — the  sweetest  thing  in  the  world.  Mathieu  was 


ELISE  EGLOFF  63 

interested  in  art  to  the  extent  of  nailing  classical  prints  upon 
his  door,  and  after  Henle  explained  this  circumstance  to  Mal- 
chen  and  heard  her  comment,  "That  must  be  nice,"  he  begged 
her  to  wait  a  few  moments.  He  was  a  knight  who  lived  only 
to  gratify  his  lady's  whims,  and  running  at  full  speed  to 
Mathieu's  room,  he  lifted  the  door  from  its  hinges,  placed  it 
upon  his  back,  and  carried  it  down  the  flights  and  across  the 
streets — exhibiting  masterpieces  of  Diirer  and  Holbein  to 
passers-by — until  breathless  but  triumphant,  he  showed  the 
pictures  to  his  beloved.  Mathieu  would  have  been  incapable 
of  such  a  feat,  for  he  evaded  the  opposite  sex  so  scrupulously 
that  he  was  considered  a  woman-hater,  but  the  sophisticated 
reader  will  understand  that  he  was  simply  bashful.  Whenever 
he  visited  Henle,  he  scrambled  hastily  up  the  steps  in  order  to 
avoid  meeting  any  of  his  friend's  sisters,  but  it  must  be  record- 
ed that  though  Mathieu  mounted  the  stairway  three  steps  at  a 
time,  he  evidently  met  Marie  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  once 
in  a  while,  for  in  the  years  that  followed,  when  the  gallant 
Henle  was  endeavoring  to  throw  away  his  bachelorhood  in 
three  cities,  the  shy  Mathieu  was  blissfully  married  to  Henle's 
eldest  sister. 

Henle's  second  brother-in-law  and  intimate  friend,  the 
Hofrath  Schoell,  also  knew  of  Henle's  relationship  to  Miss 
Egloff ,  and  after  visiting  the  girl,  related  his  impressions : 

She  made  an  exceedingly  favorable  impression  upon  me.  I  found 
her  very  charming  and  was  greatly  moved.  Then  as  it  happens  to 
everyone  who  stands  face  to  face  with  her,  I  realized  her  peculiar 
position  and  I  felt  deep  compassion  for  her.  The  thought  that  the 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

situation  may  become  extremely  painful,  if  it  should  last  much  longer, 
troubled  me.  The  fact  that  she  was  among  strange  people  in  a  strange 
place,  who  had  to  remain  strange  to  her,  despite  all  their  friendliness, 
because  they  were  not  permitted  to  know  anything  about  her  life,  then 
the  stress  of  her  belated  education,  the  change  of  conditions,  the  long- 
ing and  secret  passion,  and  the  unknown  future — all  this  is  too  much. 
If  her  lover  had  been  of  a  less  sentimental  turn  of  mind,  a  more 
prosaic  but  for  the  girl  a  more  practical  way  could  have  been  found, 
which  would  have  led  to  the  same  goal 

Apparently,  Schoell  did  not  know  that  Marie  was  not  in 
the  secret,  for  it  was  some  chance  words  of  his  which  first 
disclosed  the  actual  state  of  affairs  to  Frau  Mathieu.  Natur- 
ally, she  was  indignant  at  the  deception,  and  it  is  on  record 
that  she  could  not  suppress  the  remark  that  she  would  have 
been  far  better  pleased  if  her  brother  had  revealed  the  truth 
to  her  before.  But  Henle  managed  to  pacify  her,  and  there 
was  no  interruption  in  their  devotion  to  each  other.  That 
Henle  did  not  belong  to  the  international  army  of  unapprecia- 
tive  brothers,  may  be  seen  by  the  following  letter  which  he 
sent  Marie  concerning  Elise : 

I  do  not,  of  course,  lay  stress  upon  history,  mythology,  etc.,  but 
I  wish  that  my  protege  should  acquire  poise  and  deportment,  which 
can  come  only  through  association  with  cultured  people,  and  I  wish 
her  to  learn  to  appreciate  the  finer  shades  of  feeling  and  taste,  which 
ennoble  life.  The  school  should  merely  round  out  the  rough  edges  so 
as  to  make  her  capable  of  entering  into  select  circles,  where  she  can 
develop  further. 

In  whom,  but  you,  dear  sister,  can  I  place  my  hopes!  You  remem- 
ber that  I  told  you  a  long  time  ago,  at  a  time  when  it  did  not  sound 
like  intentional  flattery,  that  of  all  women  I  know,  I  should  like  to 


WILHELM    WALDEYER 


ELISE  EGLOFF  65 

choose  a  wife  who  would  resemble  you  in  every  respect.  I  was  also 
convinced  that  you  are  capable  of  making  sacrifices,  great  and  small, 
in  order  to  help  me  to  reach  happiness,  which  you  know  well  how  to 
value,  and  that  you  would  be  the  last  in  the  world  to  lose  patience 
should  the  result  not  meet  with  expectations,  and  that  you  would  be 
the  first  who  would  frankly,  and  free  from  prejudice,  either  approve 
of  my  decision  or  dissuade  me,  without  any  emotionalism,  from  the 
step  I  am  about  to  take,  depending  entirely  upon  your  judgment  of 
your  charge. 

Marie  now  traveled  to  Traben  to  see  Elise,  and  when  these 
two  women  met,  both  were  embarrassed.  Later,  Miss  Egloff 
moved  into  Marie  Mathieu's  home,  where  everything  possible 
was  accomplished  for  her  advancement.  Herr  Mathieu  enthu- 
siastically read  to  her  the  classic  poets,  while  Frau  Mathieu 
instructed  her  in  the  labyrinthine  intricacies  of  social  inter- 
course. Marie  performed  her  duties  faithfully,  and  her  exam- 
ple was  of  inestimable  advantage  to  Elise,  but  no  one  should 
be  surprised  to  learn  that  Miss  Egloff  was  more  at  ease  with 
gentlemen  like  Mathieu  and  Schoell,  who  welcomed  her  cor- 
dially, than  in  the  presence  of  Marie,  who  obviously  could  not 
help  thinking  that  it  was  a  trifle  unreasonable  for  Miss  Egloff 
to  have  fallen  in  love  with  her  distinguished  brother. 

Since  music  was  a  necessity  to  Henle,  a  course  of  lessons 
in  this  branch  was  mapped  out  for  Elise,  but  though  she  re- 
mained at  the  pianoforte  with  the  assiduity  of  a  child  prac- 
tising for  a  much-desired  reward,  she  made  little  progress. 
There  was  rhythm  in  her  walk  and  music  in  her  smile,  but  she 
could  not  master  bars  and  scales.  Aside  from  this  failure,  the 
experiment  was  such  a  brilliant  success  that  within  a  short 
time  Elise  Egloff  was  transformed  into  a  lady  of  the  world 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

who  moved  becomingly,  amid  general  approbation  in  circles 
bristling  with  cleverness  and  repartee,  yet  she  made  no  breaks 
and  she  violated  no  commandment  in  the  decalog  of  etiquette. 
A  certain  moralist  laid  it  down  as  an  axiom  that  all  women 
should  act  as  seamstresses  for  their  own  families,  but  Elise  did 
not  discuss  the  art  of  needlework.  The  impoverished  poet  who 
was  invited  to  the  home  of  a  lady  of  wealth,  and  began  the 
conversation  by  asking  his  hostess  if  she  had  noticed  the  differ- 
ent colors  of  pawn-tickets,  had  no  counterpart  in  Elise  Egloff . 
Her  feverishly  acquired  education,  added  to  her  native  sense 
and  delicacy,  served  to  pilot  her  through  society's  breakers, 
and  though  there  were  dangers  which  threatened  at  times  to 
wreck  her  peace,  high  above  the  foam  gleamed  the  beacon  of 
her  faith  in  Jacob  Henle. 

Events  now  moved  rapidly.  In  1845,  Henle  asked  his 
father's  permission  to  many,  the  betrothal  was  announced  in 
the  early  months  of  1846,  and  during  the  caster  vacation  Elise 
became  Henle's  wife.  The  honeymoon  was  spent  in  Vienna, 
where  Henle  was  warmly  greeted  by  the  foremost  medical  men 
of  the  day,  including  Rokitansky,  and  especially  by  his  friend 
who  "spoke  like  Cicero  and  wrote  like  Heine" — the  incom- 
parable Hyrtl.  In  the  celebrations  and  banquets  that  were 
accorded  them,  Henle  noticed  that  not  all  the  admiration  was 
directed  towards  his  learned  self,  but  that  a  generous  share 
was  lavished  upon  his  wife's  charms. 

On  the  return  journey,  the  bridal  couple  passed 
Weimar,  where  Elise  attended  the  theatre.  The  Grz 
was  one  of  the  audience,  but  did  not  give  his  undivided' 


ELISE  EGLOFF  67 

tion  to  the  play,  for  he  looked  long  at  young  Elise,  and  finally 
sent  his  adjutant  from  his  court-box  to  inquire  who  was  the 
beautiful  stranger  who  so  fascinated  him.  And  Henle,  the 
ex-Burschenschafter,  the  dangerous  demagogue  who  faced  six 
years  in  a  fortress  because  of  his  democratic  principles,  was 
overjoyed  at  this  mark  of  royal  favor.  Perhaps  he  reasoned 
that  if  the  Grand  Duke  knew  nothing  else,  at  least  he  knew  a 
handsome  woman  when  he  saw  her.  The  ladies  of  fashion 
who  crowded  around  Elise,  would  have  been  either  amazed  or 
enraged  to  learn  that  two  years  ago  she  might  have  been  their 
seamstress. 

On  reaching  Heidelberg,  Elise's  defective  education  be- 
came evident,  for  she  was  forced  to  stand  by  while  her  husband 
fixed  up  their  home  according  t  j  a  man's  ideas,  and  the  results 
were  sometimes  incongruous.  Merkel  admits  that  as  a  re- 
former in  science,  Henle  was  more  successful  than  as  a  re- 
former of  the  household — he  objected  to  curtains  because  they 
cut  off  some  of  the  light.  But  in  Henle's  defence  it  may  be 
urged  that  even  if  he  did  serve  the  roast  on  an  earthenware 
platter,  he  bought  the  largest  and  most  comfortable  chairs  and 
lounges  obtainable. 

Henle's  most  frequent  guest,  of  course,  was  Pfeufer;  one 
day  when  the  clinician  was  visiting  his  friend's  home,  his  eyes 
opened  wide  with  alarm,  for  he  heard  Elise  cough.  An  hemop- 
tysis confirmed  his  suspicions,  and  Pfeufer  diagnosed  pul- 
monary disease.  A  period  of  rest  improved  her  condition,  and 
during  the  fall  vacation  Henle  prepared  to  take  his  wife  to 
Zurich.  Henle  loved  company,  managed  to  persuade  sister 
Marie  and  brother-in-law  Mathieu  to  come  along,  and  made 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

arrangements  to  meet  Pfeufer  on  the  way.  It  gave  Henle 
pleasure  to  anticipate  the  look  of  wonder  on  the  faces  of  the 
townspeople  who  had  speculated  over  Elise's  sudden  disap- 
pearance, and  would  now  find  her  a  different  being.  But 
hardly  had  the  merry  pilgrims  reached  Zurich  when  Elise's 
malady  awoke,  and  instead  of  a  holiday  companion,  Pfeufer 
assumed  his  familiar  role  of  physician. 

As  the  days  went  on,  repeated  messages  from  Heidelberg 
called  Pfeufer  in  consultation  regarding  some  aristocratic  per- 
sonages, but  he  would  not  move  from  the  sick-bed  of  Elise. 
It  was  due  largely  to  his  efforts  that  she  returned  home  in 
such  health  that  she  was  able,  in  the  month  of  December,  to 
undergo  her  first  confinement  without  complications.  The 
child  was  named  Carl,  and  Henle  reported:  "Immediately  he 
began  to  suck  his  thumb  and  to  put  out  his  tongue,  from 
which  I  conclude  that  as  far  as  his  appetite  and  temperament 
are  concerned,  he  will  take  after  his  father." 

As  Henle  could  not  be  content  without  frequent  social 
gatherings,  Elise  arranged  many  parties  and  feasts  for  him. 
She  proved  to  be  one  of  those  hostesses  whose  characteristics 
are  a  puzzle  to  men.  Often  she  would  get  up  in  the  morning 
pale  and  tired,  and  all  day  would  be  out  of  sorts  and  complain 
of  depression,  but  as  soon  as  the  guests  began  to  arrive,  her 
features  grew  animated,  beauty  bloomed  in  her  cheeks,  and 
she  radiated  life.  To  entertain  was  easy  for  her,  for  she  was 
the  center  of  attraction. 

It  was  a  happy  household,  but  tuberculosis  draws  a  line 
from  the  home  to  Badenweiler.  In  the  summer  of  1847, 
Pfeufer  ordered  Elise  to  the  famous  health  resort,  but  from  its 
climate  and  springs  she  borrowed  no  relief.  She  returned  to 


ELISE  EGLOFF  69 

Heidelberg  an  invalid,  and  after  several  sad  months  gave  pre- 
mature birth  to  a  daughter,  named  after  herself.  Then  dark- 
ness settled  over  the  house  of  Henle,  and  life  and  death  waged 
their  never-ending  battle.  The  infant  hovered  between  the 
two  antagonists,  and  it  became  difficult  for  Henle  to  reach  the 
bedside  of  his  wife  or  child,  for  his  old  affliction  assumed  such 
aspects  that  the  doctors  debated  whether  amputation  was  in- 
dicated. During  this  critical  period,  Henle's  sisters  made 
splendid  nurses,  and  Pfeufer  was  as  efficient  as  an  entire  hos- 
pital staff. 

As  the  days  passed,  the  issue  of  the  battle  became  appar- 
ent. Henle  improved  and  was  able  to  walk  again,  and  baby 
Elise  smiled  at  its  first  victory  over  death,  but  the  lips  of 
mother  Elise  were  closed  forever.  Henle  was  inconsolable; 
for  a  long  time  he  refused  the  distractions  of  society,  and  the 
sight  of  a  woman  was  especially  unnerving.  He  could  not 
bring  himself  to  visit  the  cemetery  where  Elise  lay  buried, 
and  those  who  have  read  his  private  letters  in  which  he  be- 
moans the  loss  of  so  much  grace,  beauty  and  nobility  of  soul, 
say  that  their  pathos  is  beyond  words. 

Her  portrait  was  painted  by  Eduard  Magnus — one  of 
Henle's  most  important  friends  throughout  the  Berlin  excite- 
ment— and  the  sculptor  Meyer  perpetuated  her  in  marble. 
Berthold  Auerbach,  the  distinguished  novelist,  was  a  daily 
visitor  to  Henle's  shattered  home,  and  later  utilized  Elise's 
life-story  for  one  of  his  tales.  Charlotte  Birch-Pfeiffer,  the 
famous  actress  and  playwright,  whose  collected  productions 
number  twenty-six  volumes,  brought  Elise  upon  the  stage. 
Henle  was  deeply  hurt  at  the  manner  in  which  these  writers 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

handled  their  theme,  but  the  life  of  Elise  Egloff  was  essentially 
dramatic:  the  secret  passion  and  despair,  wisdom  captivated 
by  beauty,  the  transformation  from  seamstress  to  hostess,  the 
triumph  followed  by  tragedy — these  emotional  situations  could 
not  escape  the  authors. 

In  her  brief  career  she  added  a  fragrant  chapter  to  biog- 
raphy, for  a  sweeter  figure  than  Elise  Egloff  never  strayed 
across  the  annals  of  medical  history — she  is  one  of  those  who 
enriched  the  world  with  a  romance  it  can  never  forget. 


VI 
PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG 

The  most  vivid  description  of  Henle  in  Heidelberg  was 
drawn  by  a  student  who  did  not  follow  the  Henlean  path,  but 
became  one  of  the  greatest  clinicians  of  the  century — Adolf 
Kussmaul.  In  his  old  age,  recalling  the  memories  of  his  youth, 
Kussmaul  devoted  a  chapter  to  Henle  from  which  we  extract 
these  picturesque  passages : 

Henle's  lecture  was  like  a  fresh,  clear  brook,  upon  whose  lightly- 
stirring  surface  merry  lights  were  playing.  Although  he  framed  his 
sentences  in  a  simple  manner,  and  retained  his  poise  and  calm,  he  was 
always  entertaining,  and  his  remarks,  his  humorous  comparisons,  and 
his  sudden  and  unexpected  flashes  of  thought,  permitted  of  no  ennui. 
When  he  said  a  witty  thing,  there  was  a  smile  upon  his  lips,  he  touched 
the  tip  of  his  nose  with  his  finger,  and  threw  his  head  a  little  to  one 
side,  as  though  he  wished  to  shake  off  this  idea  which  escaped  him  while 
off  his  guard.  Within  a  short  time,  the  youthful  professor  won  the  favor 
of  his  audience.  His  academic  and  political  past  contributed  to  it  that 
the  students  loved  and  honored  him.  A  small  sword-cut  upon  his  left 
cheek  reminded  them  that  he  had  belonged  to  the  Burschenschaft,  and 
was  therefore  arrested  and  confined  in  the  Hausvogtei.  There,  too, 
shone  about  his  head  the  halo  of  a  romantic  love. 

Henle's  marriage  with  a  charming  girl  from  the  lower  classes — he, 
however,  had  his  sister  educate  her — corresponded  with  the  social  tone 

71 


72  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

of  the  time.  It  was  the  medical  men  who  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  anatomical  equality  of  Eve's  daughters  should  extend  to  social  equal- 
ity as  well.  Several  of  my  acquaintances,  and  two  honored  professors 
of  the  faculty  of  medicine  of  Strassburg,  stepped  down  from  academic 
heights  to  take  back  with  them  untutored  daughters  of  the  people.  A 
story  reached  me,  in  the  spring  of  1847,  how  a  Heidelberg  teacher  and 
anatomist,  a  pupil  of  Henle,  was  given  his  conge  by  a  pretty  child  of  the 
merry  Pfalz.  He  wished  to  follow  his  adored  master  not  only  in  the 
study  of  medicine,  but  in  the  choice  of  a  wife  as  well.  His  young,  fresh 
waitress  appealed  to  him,  and  he  made  her  a  proposal  of  marriage  with 
the  proviso  that  she  should  first  be  educated  in  a  private  ladies'  school 
at  his  expense,  so  as  to  be  fitted  for  the  position  which  she  was  to  occupy 
as  his  wife.  But  he  fared  badly.  She  flared  up  and  demanded  to  know 
whether  he  was  in  his  right  senses;  she  told  him  she  already  had  a 
sweetheart  for  whom  she  was  well  enough  educated;  a  trim  butcher, 
who  outweighed  two  such  lean  doctors. 

In  the  forties,  science  had  not  secured  its  divorce  from 
superstition,  for  their  union  was  upheld  by  many  professors 
who  were  better  versed  in  piety  than  in  pathology.  The  name 
of  Obermedizinalrat  Ringseis  means  little  to  the  present  gen- 
eration, but  in  his  day  he  was  a  power  in  Germany ;  the  filling 
of  numerous  posts  depended  upon  his  judgment,  and  this  mai? 
firmly  believed  that  disease  was  due  to  sinning  against  God 
and  could  be  cured  only  by  the  grace  of  the  church.  Moreover, 
a  host  of  system-spinners  performed  no  experiments,  but  built 
up  fanciful  little  cults  into  which  they  attempted  to  fit  the 
science  of  medicine.  Across  these  winding  mazes — beginning 
in  involved  hypotheses,  and  ending  in  an  interminable  network 
of  classifications  and  sub-divisions — Henle  cut  a  bold  new 
road,  and  the  academic  youth  of  Germany  followed  the  path- 
finder. They  swarmed  to  his  lectures,  and  the  venerable  mem- 
bers of  the  faculty  found  themselves  neglected  for  the  new 


PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG  73 

favorite.  Shortly  after  Henle's  arrival  in  Heidelberg,  an  inci- 
dent occurred  which  brought  back  the  Zurich  period.  The 
night  grew  alive  with  light,  and  music  blended  with  the  up- 
raised torches  and  then  a  student  stepped  forward  and  spoke : 

We  are  assembled  here  this  evening,  that  we  may  show  a  slight 
mark  of  our  appreciation  of  one  whom  we  esteem  as  a  thinker  and  re- 
search-worker, whom  we  admire  as  a  teacher,  and  whom  we  love  as  a 
man.  As  a  discoverer,  he  struggles  untiringly  and  indefatigably  at  the 
head  of  those  who  oppose  the  wretched  empiricism  of  medicine.  The 
frost  which  had  covered  our  science  has  been  broken  by  his  efforts,  and 
already  the  tree  bears  spring-blossoms  for  the  cure  of  suffering 
humanity. 

With  pride,  the  German  nation  points  to  the  astronomer  Kepler, 
who  through  telescopic  research  guided  us  into  the  immeasurable  starry 
infinite,  and  so  has  our  teacher's  microscopic  research  opened  to  us  the 
organic  infinite.  We  admire  him  I  say,  as  a  teacher,  for  he  has  pre- 
sented to  us  the  truth,  simply  and  convincingly,  free  from  the  nimbus 
of  exaggerated  erudition.  I  repeat,  we  love  him  as  a  human  being,  for 
science  did  not  extinguish  in  him  the  desire  for  the  well-being  of  man- 
kind and  for  the  fatherland.  From  a  full  heart,  let  us  call  a  thousand- 
voiced  Hoch  to  this  honored  man. 

Henle's  answer,  which  was  hailed  with  loud  rejoicing,  was 
simple  and  inspiring — a  model  of  what  such  replies  should  be/ 

Gentlemen,  I  accept  this  unexpected  mark  of  your  appreciation  with 
thankfulness  and  pride.  I  shall  not  say,  as  is  so  often  done,  that  this 
honor  is  impersonal.  I  say,  this  is  done  to  me  personally.  But  what 
may  be  the  reason  for  this  appreciation?  I  believe  it  is  nothing  else 
but  that  I  am  one  of  you.  Much  rubbish  is  at  hand,  which  we  have  to 
clear  away.  With  united  forces,  we  are  endeavoring  to  do  this.  We  are 
commilitants — truly  a  wonderful  name.  Comrades-in-arms  are  we,  in 
the  campaign  in  which  we  are  going  to  make  new  discoveries.  Let  us 
call  a  Hoch  to  the  comaraderie  of  our  science  and  to  our  university. 
The  significance  of  this  ovation  lay  in  its  spontaneity,  for 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

it  was  not  Henle's  birthday  nor  the  anniversary  of  anything, 
and  the  whole  celebration  was  the  instinctive  tribute  of  youth 
to  a  new  leader.  The  Easter  of  1845  witnessed  an  even 
stranger  event:  Henle  utilized  this  vacation  to  call  upon  his 
publisher  in  Braunschweig,  and  upon  his  return,  visited  Leip- 
zig, where  Felix  Mendelssohn  invited  him  to  dinner  and  music ; 
next  he  turned  toward  Halle,  where  he  had  an  appointment 
with  some  scientific  friends,  and  let  Henle  relate  what  hap- 
pened at  Halle : 

On  the  second  evening,  I  was  surprised  by  a  serenade  by  a  deputa- 
tion of  medical  students;  one  of  them  made  a  beautiful  speech  and  they 
cheered  me,  to  which  I  replied  from  the  window  with  the  calm  and  self- 
possession  of  a  man  quite  accustomed  to  such  occurrences.  The  speaker 
said  among  other  things  that  fault  had  been  found  with  the  medical 
men  of  Halle  for  following  practice  to  the  exclusion  of  theory — but  they 
simply  kept  at  a  distance  from  the  poor  theories  of  the  past.  Now, 
however,  that  I  constructed  a  new  basis,  founded  upon  physiology,  they 
were  just  as  zealous  as  any  one  to  follow  this  path,  etc.,  etc.  My  reply 
was  not  exactly  beautiful,  still  it  was  fluent  I  was  somewhat  embar- 
rassed as  Halle's  professors  were  standing  by,  and  had  to  witness  this 
boosting  of  a  stranger. 

How  frantically  some  men  have  worked  to  become  a 
Hofrath,  how  ceaselessly  they  have  schemed  for  it — and  how 
easily  it  is  thrust  upon  others  who  never  coveted  the  aulic 
counselorship.  When  the  Government  of  Baden  conferred 
this  distinction  upon  Henle  and  Pfeufer,  the  former  wrote  to 
his  father: 

You  know  what  I  think  about  this.  I  am  not  exactly  overjoyed 
that  I  shall  no  longer  hear  my  beautiful  and  well-earned  Professor's 
title;  under  the  present  condition,  however,  and  as  we  did  not  behave 
very  tamely  to  the  administration  and  did  not  take  one  single  step  to 


PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG  75 

reach  this  honor,  and  as  hardly  a  year  has  elapsed  since  our  appoint- 
ment, we  have  to  acknowledge  it  a  mark  of  recognition,  which  promises 
a  certain  influence  for  the  future,  and  this  is  in  no  way  desirable  to  our 
cringing  colleagues.  My  chief  regret  is  that  I  have  no  longer  any  right 
to  tease  Schoell.  I  spent  a  few  enjoyable  days  in  Halle,  and  was  re- 
ceived by  the  students  with  a  serenade  there,  which  gave  me  more 
pleasure  then  the  so-called  favor  of  the  lordships. 

The  year  of  destiny,  1848,  opened  inauspiciously  for  Henle. 
His  Elise  lay  on  her  death-bed,  and  on  the  twenty-first  of 
February,  death  took  her.  Quiet  had  come  to  her,  but  the 
world  was  in  revolution,  and  Heidelberg  was  the  center  of  the 
cauldron.  From  the  public  turmoil  which  naturally  agitated 
Henle,  he  could  not  escape  to  a  home  of  peace  and  comfort; 
after  the  day's  labor,  no  hearth  awaited  him  where  he  could 
throw  off  his  cares  with  his  overcoat — eventful  1848  was  the 
unhappiest  year  of  his  life. 

As  the  weary  months  wore  on,  his  sister  Helene  deter- 
mined to  come  to  his  rescue.  She  had  a  friend  named  Marie 
Richter,  the  daughter  of  a  Prussian  army  officer,  and  elo- 
quently she  sang  Jacob's  praises  to  Fraulein  Marie.  Fourteen 
months  after  his  wife's  decease,  Henle  visited  his  father  and 
sister  Helene  at  Coblenz,  and  there  he  met  not  only  his  rela- 
tives but  was  guided  to  the  vicinity  of  Miss  Richter — while 
Helene  watched  and  waited.  Her  patience  was  not  severely 
tried,  for  Helene's  brother  and  Helene's  choice  fell  in  love  with 
each  other  at  once.  Within  a  few  days,  the  scientist  proposed, 
and  was  eagerly  accepted.  Frau  Mathieu  now  visited  the  girl 
and  the  letter  of  sister  Marie  is  full  of  praise  for  sweetheart 
Marie,  but  it  reveals  also  the  writer's  own  nobility: 

As  far  as  human  insight  goes,  we  can  be  pleased  over  this  union, 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

for  Marie  Richter  possesses  all  the  qualities  from  which  we  can  expect 
that  she  will  adorn  the  family  hearth,  and  from  the  very  first  meeting 
with  our  brother  she  seemed  to  have  become  heartily  attached  to  him, 
and  affection  is  to  him  a  life's  necessity.  She  is  a  charming  well- 
appearing  girl,  and  will,  according  to  all  indications,  be  a  good  mother 
to  his  children. 

Unlike  poor  Elise,  Marie  Richter  was  proficient  in  music. 
After  an  engagement  of  a  few  months,  Henle  and  Marie  were 
married,  and  they  made  the  fairy-tale  come  true  by  living 
happily  ever  after.  In  due  time,  a  merry  daughter,  Anna,  was 
born  to  them,  and  she  was  followed  by  little  Sophie.  With 
children  and  honors  and  the  pages  of  his  Handbook  of  Rational 
Pathology  periodically  increasing,  Henle  seemed  rooted  to 
Heidelberg.  Contentment  reigned  at  his  fireside,  but  with  his 
colleagues  he  was  at  constant  war.  When  Henle  was  a  Heidel- 
berg student,  Chelius,  Tiedemann,  Naegele  and  Puchelt  were 
of  the  faculty :  years  later,  on  returning  to  Heidelberg  as  pro- 
fessor, Henle  found  the  faculty  unchanged.  Science  had 
marched  on,  but  Tiedemann,  Puchelt,  the  stately  Chelius,  and 
their  confreres,  still  sat  in  their  well-worn  chairs, — untouched 
by  the  new  era.  Upon  their  doors  the  young  generation 
knocked  loudly,  for  the  modern  Dioscuri — as  Henle  and 
Pfeufer  were  called — had  valiant  hands.  Henle's  opinion  of 
his  venerable  colleagues  may  be  plainly  seen  in  the  following 
letter,  brief  but  bristling  with  invective: 

I  am  still  somewhat  strange  here,  and  hope  to  remain  so  unless  new 
elements  appear.  To  feel  at  home  among  these  boresome  antique  uni- 
versity-pigtails, would,  as  Pfeufer  and  I  tell  each  other,  be  for  us  a 
degradation.  Here  nothing  remains  but  to  allow  the  old  to  die  out, 
and  to  found  a  new  colony.  Both  the  government  and  the  students 


PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG  77 

seem  to  wish  to  help  us  as  much  as  possible.  The  government,  whose 
eyes  have  now  been  opened,  is  astonished  how  the  faculty  utilizes  Hei- 
delberg's reputation  and  its  wonderful  location,  to  fatten  in  comfortable 
calm  and  lock  themselves  in  from  intruders.  Everything  except  the 
residences,  country  houses  and  vineyards  belonging  to  the  old  gentle- 
men, is  in  a  wretched  condition.  But  the  students  are  already  begin- 
ning to  see  that  something  new,  something  capable  of  development,  is 
offered  them.  They  are  full  of  enthusiasm  for  our  rational  medicine, 
and  consequently  enraged  at  the  backwardness  of  affairs  here. 

Even  Henle's  friends  have  blamed  him  for  the  bitterness 
here  displayed,  but  whether  justifiable  or  not,  the  letter  ex- 
presses Henle's  attitude — and  it  did  not  soften  with  the  pass- 
ing years.  The  hostile  relationship  between  the  Henle-Pfeufer 
group  and  the  elder  members  was  further  strained  by  a  power- 
ful series  of  unsigned  articles  in  the  recently-founded  Deutsche 
Zeitung,  praising  the  progressive  elements  in  the  university, 
such  as  Henle,  Pfeufer,  Vangerow,  Jolly  and  Rau,  and  lashing 
the  "reactionary  periwigs."  But  though  these  articles  were 
anonymous  they  were  not  the  production  of  a  nameless  jour- 
nalist, but  of  Georg  Gottfried  Gervinus.  He  was  one  of  the 
famous  seven  who  left  the  university  of  Gottingen  when  the 
king  of  Hanover  tore  up  the  constitution,  and  he  became  pro- 
fessor of  history  at  Heidelberg  in  the  same  year  that  Henle 
was  appointed  professor  of  anatomy.  Gervinus  wrote  the  first 
satisfactory  History  of  German  Literature,  and  after  a  venture 
in  practical  politics — from  which  he  soon  retired  in  disgust — 
he  devoted  his  time  to  the  thesis  that  his  favorite  poet,  Shake- 
speare, and  his  favorite  musician,  Handel,  were  very  much 
alike  intellectually,  because  of  their  common  Teutonic  origin. 

As  already  indicated,  it  was  the  anatomist  Tiedemann 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

who  had  opened  the  gates  of  Heidelberg  to  Henle,  but  after 
their  first  personal  contact,  the  elder  man  took  no  pride  in  his 
protege,  and  the  younger  felt  he  owed  the  other  no  gratitude. 
They  represented  different  viewpoints,  and  between  them 
there  could  be  no  sympathy.  Oddly  enough,  it  was  a  question 
of  architecture  that  fanned  Tiedemann's  smouldering  ani- 
mosity into  a  wild  paroxysm.  The  new  Anatomical  Institute 
was  then  nearing  completion,  and  as  its  nominal  director, 
Tiedemann  gave  certain  orders  for  the  furnishing  of  its  interior 
— during  the  absence  of  his  associate.  Henle  was  an  inde- 
fatigable worker,  but  he  was  so  human  that  he  went  off  on  a 
vacation  every  time  he  had  a  holiday;  upon  his  return,  he 
criticized  Tiedemann's  plans,  and  was  especially  displeased 
with  the  arrangement  of  the  auditorium,  which  he  pronounced 
unserviceable.  When  leading  architects  confirmed  Henle's 
statements,  old  Tiedemann's  anger  was  uncontrollable:  not 
only  did  he  accuse  Henle  of  a  dastardly  lie,  but  he  shouted  that 
his  young  colleague  was  a  shameless  Jew. 

Tiedemann's  shriek  reached  farther  than  he  expected,  for 
Zurich  heard  that  Henle  had  resigned,  and  cordially  offered 
him  his  chair  again.  Henle  was  undecided  whether  to  accept, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  at  this  period  he  was  so  adrift 
that  he  even  contemplated  emigration  to  America.  But  Hei- 
delberg would  not  let  Henle  go :  the  ministry  rebuked  Tiede- 
mann for  his  insult,  demanded  that  he  apologise  in  writing,  and 
conveyed  a  hint  to  Henle  that  the  director  would  soon  retire. 
Henle's  friends,  such  as  Pfeufer,  Gervinus,  Vangerow  and  Jolly 
thereupon  met  in  supreme  council,  and  having  decided  that  his 
honor  had  been  sufficiently  vindicated,  they  induced  him  t^ 


PROFESSOR  IN  HEIDELBERG  79 

Fate  practised  its  crudest  tricks  upon  Tiedemann's  de- 
clining years;  his  adored  son  was  one  of  the  revolutionists  of 
1848,  and  when  the  wonderful  year  was  dead  and  retrogression 
again  assumed  its  ancient  throne,  the  young  man  was  court- 
martialed  and  shot.  Then  the  old  professor  resigned  from  the 
university  where  he  had  become  a  tradition,  and  at  last  Henle's 
heart  went  out  in  sympathy  toward  his  fallen  antagonist. 

But  the  same  forces  which  murdered  young  Tiedemann, 
eventually  drove  Henle  from  the  faculty.  During  the  fifties, 
darkness  held  its  carnival  at  Heidelberg,  dispersing  the  liberal 
circles  that  had  gathered  there.  For  publishing  an  essay  which 
was  to  serve  as  an  introduction  to  his  History  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  Gervinus  was  placed  on  trial  for  high  treason. 
The  proud  man  disdained  to  defend  himself  except  to  say, 
"This  charge,  though  it  appears  directed  against  me,  is  really 
an  accusation  against  History,  which  cannot  be  condemned." 
But  the  reactionary  government  of  Baden  was  not  afraid  of 
History :  it  burnt  Gervinus'  pamphlet,  and  sentenced  the  writer 
to  four  months  in  prison. 

When  Heidelberg  had  become  impossible,  Pfeufer  and 
Jolly  accepted  Munich's  welcome  invitation,  and  Henle  re' 
sponded  to  the  call  from  Gottingen.  After  twelve  years  of 
constant  association,  Henle  and  Pfeufer  were  to  part.  "That 
we  do  not  go  together,"  wrote  Henle  to  his  sister,  "pains  us 
both,  but  I  think  I  may  say  that  our  friendship  has  reached  its 
zenith,  and  it  is  better  that  it  should  be  forcibly  rent  asunder 
than  that  it  should  cool  off."  Even  when  moving  day  came, 
Henle  did  not  experience  the  usual  sadness  of  farewell,  and 
his  first  Heidelberg  letter  was  rounded  out  by  his  last : 


80  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

I  depart,  for  the  second  time  from  a  wonderful  country,  with  the 
regret  that  it  is  not  peopled  with  better  men,  and  I  shall  gladly  take 
in  its  stead  some  sand  and  meadows  in  order  to  be  able  to  live  among 
scientific  colleagues  and  under  a  government  to  whom  one  does  not 
become  objectionable  because  of  one's  justified  ambition  for  one's  insti- 
tution. 

So  the  scientist  left  the  wooded  banks  of  the  Neckar  and 
turned  to  the  North,  but  the  stormy  Heidelberg  years  were  not 
barren,  for  Jacob  Henle  carried  with  him  to  Gottingen  the 
completed  copy  of  his  great  Handbook  of  Rational  Pathology. 


VII 

THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN 

In  the  anatomical  building  of  Gottingen's  university — "the 
great  university  in  the  small  town"— old  Rudolf  Wagner,  con- 
spicuous for  his  religious  zeal  and  remembered  for  his  discov- 
ery of  the  germinal  spot,  awaited  the  coming  of  Jacob  Henle. 
Professor  Wagner  had  feared  this  day,  and  long  fought  against 
it ;  it  was  his  heart's  desire  to  die  teaching  anatomy,  but  as  his 
years  advanced  and  his  health  declined,  both  colleague's  and 
students  insinuated,  gently  at  first  and  later  with  increasing 
pressure,  that  he  step  aside;  he  prepared  to  withstand  all  his 
opponents,  but  a  hemorrhage  came  to  their  aid,  and  the  pious 
man  humbly  said,  "Now  that  the  living  God  has  spoken,  I 
must  bow  my  head," — and  in  submission  he  sent  for  Henle. 
After  Wagner  and  Henle  met,  the  latter,  with  his  usual  per- 
spicacity, explained :  "My  position  towards  Wagner  is  similar 
to  that  I  once  held  in  relation  to  Tiedemann,  with  all  its  diffi- 
culties, except  that  Wagner  is  a  much  finer  character,  and  fun- 
damentally a  good  man.  But  it  is  asking  too  much  that  he 
stand  by,  and  see  how  someone  inherits  from  him,  while  he  is 
still  alive." 

The  halo  of  spirituality  which  shone  about  Wagner,  re- 
ceived a  few  crimps  from  Karl  Vogt,  but  it  shed  its  beams 
upon  Henle,  who  was  accordingly  granted  an  interview  with 
George  V.,  the  sightless  king  of  Hanover.  In  those  days, 

81 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

many   letters   passed   between    Gottingen   and   Munich,   and 
Henle  wrote  to  Pfeufer: 

I  have  had  the  honor  of  dining  with  his  majesty  at  Rotenkirchen. 
This  is  not  so  remarkable  that  you  should  be  informed  of  it,  but  that 
this  honor  is  due  to  my  piety,  will  surely  amuse  you.  The  king  received 
me  with  the  statement  that  he  felt  it  a  necessity  to  inform  me  how  much 
he  congratulated  himself  upon  the  acquisition  of  a  teacher  whose  repu- 
tation as  a  scientist  was  combined  with  that  of  a  strictly  Christian  mind 
The  poor  deluded  man  had,  on  his  way  through  Heidelberg,  received  a 
visit  from  colleague  Wagner,  and  apparently  had  some  specific  conversa- 
tion with  him,  and  then,  because  of  my  matter  then  pending  in  Heidel- 
berg, he  somehow  connected  me  with  this  visit,  and  so  I  stood  face  to 
face  with  him  as  a  brother  in  Christ  in  talar  and  a  white  neck-tie,  in 
which  you  once,  in  your  friendly  partiality  for  my  exterior,  compared 
me  with  calf's  head  en  tortue,  and  with  a  countenance  which  must  have 
appeared  still  more  strange,  as  my  heroic  efforts  to  set  it  into  strict 
composure  were  lost  upon  the  blind  king  and  the  entire  work  was  done 
merely  for  the  love  of  God. 

I  did  not  have  the  heart  to  spoil  the  king's  joy,  for  he  cannot  get 
rid  of  me  now;  and  when  he  began  to  reason  about  deists,  I  was  able  to 
assure  him  without  hypocrisy,  that  I  too  did  not  believe  much  in  deism, 
and  when  he  expressed  the  conviction  that  a  professor  of  anatomy 
could,  in  his  lectures,  do  much  for  the  propagation  of  religious  faith,  I 
made  him  very  happy  when  I  remarked  that  I  always  call  my  hearers' 
attention  to  the  defects  of  human  understanding,  even  in  tangible  things. 
If  I  talked  a  Guelfenorder  on  my  neck  or  into  my  button-hole,  you  may 
rest  assured  that  I  shall  put  it  on  with  a  blush.  His  majesty  imme- 
diately grasped  the  opportunity  of  informing  himself  regarding  the 
utility  of  the  blind  gut,  and  we  had  arrived  in  this  remarkable  private 
audience  as  far  as  tapeworms,  when  the  Hofmarschall  announced  that 
the  soup  was  served. 

In  the  fifties,  pastorals  could  have  been  bred  in  Gottingen, 
for  rusticity  was  its  keynote.    The  same  sylvan  paths  served 


THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN  83 

for  professors  engrossed  in  meditation,  and  for  cows  intent  on 
rumination.  There  was  no  railroad  nor  thriving  industries, 
but  every  family  kept  a  pig-pen  whose  dwellers  spread  the 
fame  of  Gottingen  sausage.  It  is  true,  the  principal  streets  of 
the  town  were  lined  with  paving  stones,  but  between  their 
crevices  the  grass  grew  with  sufficient  luxuriance  to  satisfy 
herds  of  sheep.  On  his  initial  contact  with  this  ruralness, 
Henle  was  appalled — it  seemed  incredible,  after  his  active 
career,  that  he  should  pass  the  remainder  of  his  days  amid 
such  provincial  surroundings.  As  soon  as  he  heard  that 
Pfeufer  was  negotiating  for  him  at  Munich,  Henle  left  his 
home  half- furnished  and  wrote  to  his  friend: 

I  would  much  rather  use  my  energies  in  connection  with  yours,  to 
build  up  Munich's  university  than  work  here  in  this  retirement,  for  the 
preservation  of  a  university  which  blinks  melancholically  backward  upon 
the  good  old  days.  I  long  for  the  merriment  of  the  South  and  the 
animated  life  of  a  large  city,  more  so  for  the  sake  of  my  wife  and  my 
growing  progeny  than  for  myself,  for  I,  at  least,  have  beautiful  mem- 
ories to  live  upon. 

Gradually  the  peace  of  the  small  town  enveloped  the  spirit 
of  Henle,  and  Pfeufer  learnt  that  his  Gottingen  comrade  began 
to  lecture  on  special  anatomy,  "in  that  melancholic-trembling 
voice  which  you  know  so  well,"  and  the  following  bucolic  was 
transmitted  to  Munich: 

I  find  myself  in  the  cleanest  and  richest  of  anatomical  professor- 
ships imaginable.  To  use  the  classroom  expression,  I  am  "surrounded 
by  all  the  integral  stimuli"  which  a  man  and  a  professor  requires  in 
life — only  the  vexatious  and  the  exciting  ones  are  lacking.  We  have 
time,  money,  devout  pupils,  and  complete  teaching  apparatus.  The 
colleagues  are  nothing  but  open  encyclopedias.  All  are  as  virtuous  and 
as  industrious  as  I  hope  to  become,  because  there  is  no  opportunity  for 
anything  else. 

The  city  lodges  many  students  and  their  teachers;  it  also  harbors 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

the  necessary  bootblack,  a  cobbler,  a  tailor,  an  inn-keeper,  and  a  burgo- 
master and  four  gendarmes  who  govern  these  citizens.  At  the  stroke 
of  the  hour  when  the  lecture  is.  over,  it  is  somewhat  livelier  in  the 
streets;  at  twelve  it  is  noisy,  because  besides  the  home-returning  men, 
the  streets  swarm  mth  maid-servants  with  baskets  filled  with  berries 
and  prunes.  Carriage  wheels  are  heard  only  when  there  is  a  ball,  or 
when  a  professor  is  being  buried.  At  four  o'clock  everything  rushes  on 
the  Wall,  and  runs  once  or  twice  around  the  town,  after  the  fashion  of 
hemorrhoids,  more  or  less  completely  blind. 

I  have  already  found  a  student  who  plays  the  violin;  as  I  wished 
to  form  a  trio  and  needed  a  C  string  for  my  violincello,  I  inquired  at  the 
store  and  found  that  the  store-keeper  permitted  the  article  to  run  out, 
because  for  two  years  there  had  been  no  demand  for  it.  She  would, 
however,  have  one  spun  for  me.  When  it  was  ready,  I  had  to  have  the 
opening  in  the  tail-piece  of  my  instrument  made  larger,  because  the 
string  would  not  go  through. 

In  public  and  social  life,  much  has  been  retained  to  remind  one  of 
the  town's  former  connection  with  England.  There  is  much  more  civic 
freedom  here  than  anywhere  else  in  Germany;  restrictions  of  hats, 
books,  collections,  etc.,  woud  be  just  as  impossible  here  as  in  England. 
We  know  nothing  of  either  the  religious  or  political  faith  of  our  neigh- 
bors. But  aside  from  independence  in  vital  matters,  there  is  to  be  found 
the  English  sameness  in  non-essentials;  the  unalterable  roast  at  dinner 
and  a  certain  stability  in  food  and  drink,  which  in  spite  of  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  host  and  the  merriment  of  the  guest,  would  bring  people 
of  your  sensitive  taste  to  despair.  Every  Sunday  we  meet  the  same 
valet  de  place,  who  tells  us  in  advance  where  we  shall  dine  together 
the  forthcoming  Sunday,  and  everywhere  are  to  be  found  the  culinary 
products  of  the  same  cook. 

Henle  sealed  his  contentment  with  Gottingen  by  buying 
a  home,  situated  directly  on  the  promenade  which  led  around 
the  town,  shaded  by  magnificent  lindens,  and  enriched  with 
a  garden  of  rare  plants  and  old  trees.  The  house  had  formerly 


THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN  85 

been  Langenbeck's  private  hospital,  and  the  walls  which  once 
saw  the  master  surgeon  amputate  a  shoulder  while  you  took  a 
pinch  of  snuff,  now  witnessed  happier  scenes.  If  an  academy, 
a  library,  an  opera  and  a  dramatic  troupe  had  arrived  in  Gottin- 
gen,  all  at  once,  they  could  not  have  aroused  the  town  more 
than  did  Henle's  advent.  He  formed  his  colleagues  into  a 
Friday  Night  Club,  and  was  its  animating  spirit,  but  intercom- 
munion with  fellow  professors  never  sufficed  for  Henle ;  gath- 
ering groups  of  students  and  young  privat  docents  around  him, 
Henle  organized  musical  and  theatrical  circles.  His  home 
became  the  headquarters  of  visiting  artists,  and  his  position  as 
director  of  the  museum  enabled  him  to  utilize  the  museum's 
hall  for  concerts.  Renowned  men  and  women  participated  in 
Henle's  musical  evenings:  here  were  heard  Joachim's  violin, 
and  the  mezzo  soprano  of  Amalie  Weiss. 

Among  Henle's  new  professional  friends  was  the  derma- 
tologist, Conrad  Heinrich  Fuchs.  "I  begin  to  feel,"  wrote 
Henle  to  Pfeufer,  "a  great  attachment  to  Fuchs,  because  of 
the  pleasant  recollections  which  his  doubtful  hard  'b'  awakens 
1  in  me,  and  also  for  his  kind  nature  and  modest  manner,  in 
which  there  is  nothing  to  remind  one  of  the  pretentious  Sys- 
tems of  Skin  Diseases."  The  point  of  this  note  is  that  Pfeufer 
and  Fuchs  were  natives  of  Bamberg,  and  therefore  found  it 
difficult  to  pronounce  the  alphabet's  second  letter;  moreover, 
Fuchs  was  an  adherent  of  the  so-called  Natural  History  School, 
and  he  proved  it  in  his  once-famous  book  on  diseases  of  the 
skin,  for  while  it  contains  many  valuable  observations  on 
etiology  and  diagnosis,  and  even  on  therapeutics,  the  effect  is 
marred  by  its  incomprehensible  nosological  arrangement.  Had 
Fuchs  not  made  the  slightest  attempt  at  classification,  instead 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

of  devoting  his  chief  energies  to  it,  the  result  would  have  been 
less  bewildering. 

Another  friend  was  the  obstetrician,  Eduard  Caspar  Sie- 
bold,  a  member  of  what  Lorenz  Oken  called  the  "Asclepiad 
family  of  Siebolds."  He  is  now  remembered  for  his  classical 
history  of  midwifery.  Siebold  was  a  singer,  and  played  the 
kettle-drum  and  tymbals  with  unusual  skill — and  Henle  did  not 
permit  him  to  neglect  these  instruments.  Henle  asserted  that 
at  the  very  first  tone,  he  could  tell  whether  Siebold  or  an 
ordinary  drummer  was  playing. 

Then  there  was  Friedrich  Wohler,  who  was  certainly 
worth  knowing.  He  graduated  in  medicine  and  sur- 
gery at  Heidelberg,  and  intended  to  become  a  prac- 
titioner, but  he  had  already  worked  in  the  labora- 
tory of  Leopold  Gmelin,  and  was  persuaded  by  him 
to  devote  his  life  to  chemistry.  Gmelin  discovered  potassium 
ferricyanide  but  Wohler  may  be  regarded  as  Gmelin's  chief 
contribution  to  science.  The  young  Wohler  went  to  Stock- 
holm to  study  under  the  great  Berzelius,  and  in  later  years, 
along  with  original  researches,  he  translated  his  teacher's  work 
from  the  Swedish.  His  friendship  with  Berzelius  was  matched 
by  his  lifelong  relationship  with  Liebig,  with  whom  he  was 
associated  in  many  important  researches.  Wohler  taught  for 
brief  periods  in  Berlin  and  in  Cassel,  but  for  almost  half  a 
century  he  held  the  chair  of  chemistry  in  the  medical  faculty 
at  Gottingen.  Wohler  was  the  man  who  broke  down  the  bar- 
rier between  organic  and  inorganic  chemistry  by  constructing 
an  organic  substance  out  of  its  inorganic  constituents — and 
thus  the  vital  force  theory  received  its  death-blow.  It  was 
granted  to  Wohler  to  make  another  discovery  of  permanent 


THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN  87 

importance :  just  as  his  synthesis  of  urea  marked  the  beginning 
of  modern  organic  chemistry,  so  his  demonstration  that  ben- 
zoic  acid  taken  into  the  body  reappears  in  the  urine  as  hippuric 
acid,  opened  the  modern  era  of  the  chemistry  of  metabolism. 
Wohler  was  equally  interested  in  analysis  and  among  the 
elements  he  isolated  were  aluminium,  beryllium  and  yttrium. 
In  the  spring  of  1858,  the  sons  of  science  went  into  mourn- 
ing, for  the  father  of  scientific  medicine  in  Germany  bade  them 
the  last  farewell.  No  longer  would  his  voice  be  heard  in  the 
lecture-room,  nor  his  guiding  hand  felt  in  the  laboratory.  His 
pupils  remained — Schwann  was  at  Liege,  Henle  at  Gottingen, 
Kolliker  at  Wurzburg,  Brucke  and  Ludwig  at  Vienna,  Wil- 
helm  His  at  Basel,  Virchow  at  Berlin — but  their  teacher  had 
left  them.  Johannes  Miiller  was  dead,  but  the  work  must  go 
on,  and  mighty  Berlin  turned  its  eyes  towards  the  town  of 
Gottingen,  where  now  dwelt  Germany's  greatest  anatomist, 
Jacob  Henle.  The  times  had  changed,  for  the  city  which  had 
thrust  the  youth  into  prison,  invited  the  man  to  enter  its  uni- 
versity as  Johannes  Muller's  successor.  When  Pfeufer  read 
in  the  newspapers  that  Henle  had  received  the  offer  from 
Berlin,  his  emotions  were  on  edge,  and  he  immediately  wrote 
to  Henle  asking  him  if  he  intended  to  accept,  and  assuring 
him  that  though  he  might  conclude  his  life  with  more  content- 
ment in  Gottingen,  yet  it  was  certain  that  he  belonged  in  Ber- 
lin. Without  delay,  Henle  replied  to  his  most  intimate  friend : 

It  is  true  I  received  an  offer  from  Berlin,  as  brilliant  as  possible, 
purely  for  anatomy,  with  a  to-be-newly-constructed  building,  with  a 
prosector  of  my  own  choice,  with  a  seat  in  the  faculty  and  at  the 
state  examinations — and  I  have  rejected  it  Not  without  a  great  mental 
struggle;  but  on  what  solid  basis  my  final  decision  was  founded  was 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

proven  to  me  when  I  read  your  letter,  which  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I 
have  always  valued  you  as  an  authority  in  practical  matters,  could  not 
shake  my  peace  of  mind.  How  much  I  would  have  liked  to  have  gone 
for  advice  to  my  old  friend!  The  matter  was  left  entirely  to  me,  as  not 
even  my  wife  would  give  a  sign  of  what  preference  she  felt,  and  the 
Berlin  Geheimrath  who  unexpectedly  crashed  in  on  me  with  this  offer 
like  a  bomb,  insisted  on  coming  back  for  my  answer  on  the  following 
day,  and  could  only  be  persuaded  to  depart  when  I  gave  him  my  assur- 
ance that  I  would  forward  my  decision  within  forty-eight  hours. 

You  may  voice  your  objections  that  I  permitted  myself  to  be  so 
hurried.  I  however,  wished  that  the  Prussians  should  not  lose  more 
time  than  necessary,  as  I  felt  from  the  outset  that  their  efforts  to  get 
me  would  be  unsuccessful.  I  am  greatly  attached  to  Gottingen;  I  felt 
at  home  here  from  the  first  moment;  every  change  that  has  occurred 
has  made  my  position  more  comfortable;  and  I  can  surely  count  upon 
it  that  it  will  be  the  same  in  the  future,  and  that  in  any  matter  con- 
cerning the  university  I  shall  have  a  decisive  voice.  I  contemplated 
M tiller's  position  without  the  slightest  envy,  while  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
called  my  position  a  more  enviable  one.  Why  should  then,  the  accident 
of  his  untimely  death  give  me  an  incentive  to  see  if  I  could  not  have 
things  better  than  I  already  have  them? 

The  great  city  and  its  manifold  contacts  do  not  possess  the  same 
attraction  for  me  as  they  do  for  you;  it  is  probably  the  result  of  my 
provincial  origin  that  the  bustle  of  strange  and  stiff  people  makes  an 
unpleasant  impression  upon  me,  and  that  I  find  more  comfort  in  the 
quietude  in  which  our  life  flows  on  here,  under  the  shadow  of  our  trees 
and  among  a  few  everyday  friends.  Besides,  you  must  not  draw  a 
parallel  between  Berlin  and  Munich,  and  between  Gottingen  and  any 
other  small  town.  For  Munich  has,  besides  all  the  agreeableness  of  a 
large  city,  still  many  congenial  rural  elements,  which  Berlin  lacks,  and 
Gottingen  is  more  a  country  seat  for  a  number  of  professors  and  stu- 
dents than  a  small  town.  If  we  gradually  appropriate  das  Geschmaeckle 
of  which  you  speak,  we  do  not  notice  it  upon  each  other,  and  if  it  is  ap- 
parent to  our  friends  from  large  cities,  whom  we  unfortunately  meet 


THE  CALL  TO  GOTTINGEN  89 

but  seldom  and  but  for  a  few  days  we  must  hope  that  they  like  us  well 
enough  to  put  up  with  it. 

If  I  felt  some  of  that  self-confidence,  with  which  I  would  have  gone 
into  Parliament  in  1848,  if  my  leg  had  permitted  me  to  stand  up  at  the 
time,  I  would  consider  it  my  duty  to  become  the  citizen  of  a  state,  which 
after  all,  is  the  dominant  factor  in  German  affairs.  But  I  have  not  yet 
forgotten,  how  at  the  time,  it  was  not  my  wit,  but  merely  my  misfortune, 
that  saved  me  from  compromising  myself.  That  I  can  bring  up  my 
children  here  physically  stronger  and  mentally  less  blase  than  would  be 
the  case  in  Berlin,  I  know  for  certain.  And  for  me  the  reflection  over 
going  or  remaining  was  merely  a  struggle  between  inclination  and  duty. 
Whether  it  was  right  for  me  to  withdraw  myself  from  such  an  important 
and  influential  post,  with  great  resources,  and  participate  in  the  list  of 
a  tournament  to  which  I  was  called,  I  shall  have  to  justify  myself  be- 
fore my  conscience  and  my  friends  whose  eyes  are  focussed  upon  me. 

How  alone  I  would  have  stood!  Was  it  not  characteristic  that  not 
the  slightest  hint,  not  a  friendly  word  of  persuasion  from  the  lap  of  the 
faculty,  or  from  other  friends,  preceded  the  arrival  of  the  Berlin  media- 
tor? Could  I  be  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  since  leaving  Berlin,  I 
received  not  the  slightest  mark  of  distinction  from  the  medical  societies 
that  spring  up  there,  and  that  the  Berlin  Academy  purposely  avoids 
me?  Though  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  imagining  things,  still  it  seemed 
1  to  me  quite  clear  that  I  made  myself  unavoidable  through  my  book, 
and  that  I  was  proposed  and  expected  as  the  inevitable  one.  And  Fr. 
who  was  supposed  to  have  dished  out  the  gravy,  belongs  to  those  who 
will  not  forgive  me  because  I  did  not  wait  for  the  physicians  to  clean 
out  the  pathological  stall.  .  . 

Could  I,  without  flattering  myself,  hope  to  exercise  influence  upon 
the  course  of  studies  in  Prussia?  Dear  friend,  we  both  know  that  we, 
with  united  forces  and  in  younger  and  more  spirited  years,  were  unsuc- 
cessful with  the  subdual  of  a  less  tough  dough.  A  man  of  M  tiller's 
importance  had  difficulty  enough,  and  had  to,  often  play  his  highest 
trump  to  remain  unattacked  in  his  own  field.  This  is,  and  we  have 
often  acknowledged  it,  not  my  terrain,  and  a  man  of  fifty  years  should 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

not  deceive  himself  into  imagining  that  through  transplantation  into 
a  new  soil,  he  can  acquire  new  qualities.  I  live  chiefly  to  please  myself, 
and  believe  myself  to  be  useful  to  others  if  I  give  to  the  world  the 
results  of  my  quiet  musing. 

To  satisfy  this  passion,  there  is  no  place  more  suitable  than  Gottin- 
gen.  Were  I  to  go  to  Berlin,  I  would  have  interrupted  my  work  for  a 
few  years,  first  because  of  the  removal  and  then  because  of  the  work 
incidental  to  the  building  up  of  a  new  collection.  How  terribly  Miiller 
had  often  sighed  over  the  burden  of  the  state  examinations,  which  took 
up,  year  in  and  year  out,  so  much  of  his  time.  Forgive  this  long  expo- 
sition. But  as  you  do  not  know  either  Gottingen  or  Berlin  in  their 
modern  phases,  the  matter  could  not  be  explained  briefly.  Verbally,  I 
could  even  say  much  more.  Could  you  but  glance  into  our  activities! 
You  would  not  wish  to  live  here,  but  you  would  understand  why  others 
feel  themselves  so  attached. 

Until  he  came  to  Gottingen,  Henle  was  a  peripatetic:  six 
years  he  was  Mullet's  prosector  in  Berlin,  four  years  profes- 
sor in  Zurich,  and  for  eight  years  professor  in  Heidelberg— 
but  for  the  remaining  thirty-three  years  of  his  life  he  was  set- 
tled. It  was  Reichert  who  went  to  Berlin  as  Miiller's  anatom- 
ical heir.  Henle  remained  in  Gottingen,  cultivated  his  garden, 
paid  the  mortgage  on  his  house,  and  worked  on  his  master- 
piece, The  Handbook  of  Systematic  Anatomy. 


VIII 
THE   JUBILEE 

In  1866— a  year  famous  for  its  quarrels — Bismarck  and 
King  George  could  not  agree,  and  Bismarck  characteristically 
ended  the  argument  by  annexing  Hanover.  By  this  act  of 
absorption,  the  University  of  Gottingen  ceased  to  stand  apart 
in  cloister-like  aloofness,  for  its  faculty  automatically  became 
members  of  the  University  Society  of  Prussia.  Henle  had 
refused  to  come  to  Prussia,  but  Prussia  had  come  to  Henle. 

The  new  state  of  affairs  divided  Hanover  into  those  who 
favored  the  annexation,  and  those  who  disapproved,  and  in 
the  factional  disputes  that  naturally  followed,  many  old  friend- 
ships were  broken.  Henle  was  at  all  times  opposed  to  Bis- 
marck's internal  policy,  and  bitterly  resented  the  statesman's 
present  tactics,  and  therefore  five  professors  resigned  from  his 
Friday  club.  For  some  time  to  come,  at  the  least  provocation, 
Gottingen  was  split  into  Prussians  and  Hanoverians;  for  ex- 
ample, in  1868,  Henle's  son  Karl,  arranged  a  ball  at  the 
museum,  and  a  sleigh-party  comprised  of  students  and  young 
ladies.  They  rode  out  into  a  storm  that  traveled  straight  to 
the  door  of  father  Henle,  who  thus  explained  the  cause  of  the 
tempest : 

91 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

The  sleighing  party  which  took  place  a  few  weeks  ago  and  tne 
dance  that  followed,  resulted  in  a  complaint  of  the  police-director  to 
the  pro-rector,  wherein  he  summed  up  the  sleighing  party  under  the 
heading  of  'gathering  under  free  skies,'  for  which  the  police  is  to  grant 
permission  forty-eight  hours  in  advance.  It  required  much  paper  to 
convince  the  bone-headed  bureaucrats  that  you  could  not  order  snow 
to  remain  on  the  ground  for  forty-eight  hours. 

Another  and  much  worse  excitement,  which  extended  even  to  the 
lowest  strata  of  society,  and  which  once  more  divided  the  city  into 
Prussians  and  Hanoverians,  was  the  ball  arranged  in  the  Museum  by 
Karl  and  his  friends.  It  required  a  general  meeting  of  120  earnest  men 
to  decide  in  a  conference,  whether  there  is  a  difference  between  a  feast 
and  a  ball,  and  whether  the  feast  could  only  be  arranged  by  private 
individuals  and  the  ball  only  by  the  director.  To  speak  more  correctly, 
they  merely  seemed  to  hold  this  conference,  for  its  actual  purpose  was 
the  official  assassination  of  the  present  director.  I  shall,  therefore,  like 
Bismarck,  be  more  constitutional  than  is  expected,  and  shall  resign  the 
post  which  for  seven  years  deprived  me  of  much  time,  and  during  the 
past  two  years  caused  me  much  aggravation,  and  was  only  of  value  to 
me  in  so  far  as  I  had  the  disposal  of  the  hall  at  my  command,  and  was 
able  to  invite  artists  here  and  keep  in  touch  with  them. 

Henle  sought  relief  from  these  agitations  by  an  excursion 
to  Upper  Bavaria.  Tourists  who  visited  the  Tegernsee  dur- 
ing the  fall  of  1869,  were  apt  to  come  across  a  quintet  whose 
hair  was  grey,  but  who  chatted  together  with  all  the  abandon 
of  youth.  Many  years  had  passed  since  the  dissolution  of  the 
Heidelberg  circle,  but  now  Henle,  Pfeufer,  Jolly,  Gervinus 
and  the  orientalist  Hitzig  were  together  again,  reveling  in  the 
beauty  of  the  mountain-lake  and  in  the  luxury  of  old  mem- 
ories. Towards  the  end  of  the  vacation,  when  Henle  and 


THE  JUBILEE  93 

Pfeufer  clasped  hands  with  the  love  of  thirty  years  between 
them,  they  promised  each  other  to  meet  again  next  year; 
three  days  later,  word  was  brought  to  Henle,  that  Pfeufer, 
while  journeying  to  the  Achensee  with  his  wife  and  daughter, 
dropped  dead  in  the  boat.  Henle  wrote  to  his  sister: 

Those  were  three  wonderful  weeks  which  I  spent  with  my  old 
friend.  Never  since  we  left  Heidelberg  to  go  in  different  directions, 
did  we  associate  with  each  other  so  long  and  so  uninterruptedly.  Al- 
though the  lake  lay  between  our  residences,  we  were  together  every  day 
and  usually  twice  a  day.  In  the  morning  I  had  myself  rowed  over,  and 
at  noon  his  daughter  rowed  me  back  in  a  boat  which  she  had  hired. 
In  the  afternoon,  we  generally  met  together  with  our  retinues  on  some 
beautiful  spot  whereto  we  went  on  foot,  and  Pfeufer  in  his  carriage. 
Then  I  had  to  sit  at  his  side  while  his  grandchildren  and  my  children 
played  around  us,  and  from  time  to  time  he  would  send  me  away  to 
talk  to  his  wife,  who  found  it  painful  when  she  did  not  hear  me. 

We  spoke  of  everything — our  science,  our  politics,  our  families; 
it  seemed  as  though  I  was  to  carry  with  me  the  conviction  that  we 
were  of  one  mind  in  everything.  He  suffered  somewhat  from  asthma, 
was  more  sluggish  in  his  movements  than  before,  tired  easier,  but  men- 
tally was  as  fresh  and  alive  as  ever.  He  did  not  think  of  any  danger; 
his  concern  was  chiefly  that  he  would  become  too  weak  for  his  teach- 
ing activities,  as  the  clinic  exhausted  him  and  the  crowds  of  hearers  in 
the  hospital  rooms  oppressed  him.  He  contemplated  giving  up  the 
clinic.  He  still  felt  strong  enough  for  lectures  and  for  his  office.  We 
parted  with  the  understanding  to  meet  again  next  fall  in  a  different 
place,  for  though  we  found  Tegernsee  charming,  we  had  already  drained 
its  beauties. 

Three  days  later,  he  was  dead.  His  death  was  such  as  he  wished 
for  himself  and  for  me,  for  he  said  this  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  me 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

after  our  father's  death.  We  cannot  bemoan  his  fate;  the  autopsy 
showed  that  he  had  been  approaching  an  unforboded  serious  affliction 
But  the  situation  of  the  wife  and  daughter  who  returned  from  a  trip  so 
joyously  undertaken,  with  the  corpse  at  the  bottom  of  the  boat!  We 
received  the  sad  news  in  Munich  at  the  art  exhibition.  The  distraction 
of  the  return  journey,  the  life  in  the  overfilled  family  house  in  Niirn- 
berg,  the  pleasure  in  seeing  the  sisters  in  Mainz  in  good  health,  helped 
me  to  bear  the  first  pangs  of  the  grief.  Now  when  I  find  myself  in  the 
old  familiar  rooms,  I  first  feel  how  much  the  absent  friend  was  tied  up 
with  all  my  doing  and  thinking. 

Henle  kept  a  bust  of  the  departed  upon  his  desk,  and 
Merkel  says  that  many  a  hallowed  glance  fell  upon  it.  Henle 
wrote  to  Pfeufer's  widow: 

That  our  dear  friend  is  unforgettable  and  that  the  breach  which 
his  death  created  can  never  be  filled,  I  feel  as  much  as  you  do.  To  me 
too,  the  world  looks  changed  since  I  miss  the  heart  which  shared  all  my 
joys  and  sorrows,  and  I  no  longer  can  hope  to  give  him  pleasure  by  my 
work  and  draw  from  him  a  word  of  approbation.  How  vague  every- 
thing seems  that  remains  to  me  of  friends,  besides  the  memory  of  this 
one!  You  may,  therefore,  be  certain  that  I  find  your  laments  justified, 
and  that  I  shall  never  tire  of  hearing  them  as  long  as  you  feel  the  need 
to  express  them.  There  is  a  certain  equalization  of  justice  in  this,  that 
whoever  had  the  happiness  of  possessing  such  a  man  as  you  did,  must 
also  accept  the  danger  of  the  terrible  contrast  which  death  creates. 
But  who  would,  because  of  this  danger,  place  a  limit  upon  such  happi- 
ness !  And  when  parting  must  come,  there  is  no  better  consolation  than 
the  knowledge  that  nothing  in  happiness  had  been  missed. 

In  this  same  year,  our  much-quoted  Friedrich  Siegmund 
Merkel,  who  was  then  a  young  doctor  of  twenty-four,  arrived 


THE  JUBILEE  95 

from  Erlangen  to  become  Henle's  prosector  in  Gottingen,  and 
showed  devotion  not  only  to  the  master's  system  of  anatomy, 
but  to  his  daughter  Anna,  and  thus  Henle  acquired  his  first 
son-in-law.  Merkel  later  became  professor  at  Rostock  and 
then  at  Konigsberg;  he  wrote  numerous  anatomical  articles 
and  pamphlets,  among  his  chief  contributions  being  his  trea- 
tise on  topographical  anatomy,  and  his  description  of  the  tac- 
tile corpuscles  of  the  papillae  of  the  skin.  Merkel  edited  suc- 
cessive editions  of  Henle's  Ground-plan  of  Anatomy.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  sons-in-law  make  the  best  biographers, 
and  Merkel's  life  of  Henle  has  proved  indispensable  to  the 
present  writer. 

Henle's  fourth  daughter,  Emma,  and  his  second  son, 
Adolf,  were  born  at  Gottingen.  During  the  seventies,  three 
more  of  Henle's  children — Karl,  Sophie,  and  Elise — were  mar- 
ried. Grandchildren  added  to  his  joys,  except  when  death 
chose  infancy  as  its  untimely  victim.  But  sunny  countenances 
were  the  usual  visitors  to  the  patriarch's  fireside.  When 
trouble  came  to  any  members  of  the  household,  they  instinc- 
tively turned  to  Henle,  and  the  hand  that  might  have  been 
penning  an  immortal  idea  a  moment  ago,  would  be  kindly 
stretched  forth  to  comfort  a  child's  distress.  Fame  never 
disarranged  Henle's  simplicity.  Sitting  at  his  desk  until  ten 
o'clock,  teaching  for  the  remainder  of  the  morning  and  part 
of  the  afternoon,  a  post-prandial  application  to  belles-lettres 
followed  by  devotion  to  science  until  supper-time,  then  smok- 
ing a  cigar  while  his  wife  read  a  novel  and  his  daughters 
busied  themselves  with  needlework,  and  back  to  his  desk 
again  where  he  worked  until  midnight,  finding  his  recreation 
in  his  musical  and  literary  circles,  his  days  flowed  peacefully 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

on,  and  for  long  periods  he  moved  merely  between  his  home 
and  the  anatomy  building.  The  spring  of  Henle's  life  was 
stormy,  but  its  winter  was  mild.  Tranquility  was  the  key- 
note of  his  venerable  years. 

During  1882,  three  of  Henle's  eminent  friends,  the  nov- 
elist Auerbach,  the  chemist  Wb'hler,  and  the  histologist 
Schwann,  passed  away.  The  old  Henle  immediately  prepared 
a  standard  memoir  of  Theodor  Schwann,  the  co-worker  of  his 
youth,  living  again  through  the  stirring  days  when  he  and 
Schwann  moved  into  one  house  and  reconstructed  biology. 
Henle  received  his  diploma  in  1832  and  it  was  now  1882 — a 
span  of  half  a  century.  The  fiftieth  anniversary  was  on  the 
fourth  of  April,  and  on  that  day  glad  outbursts  of  music  were 
heard  near  Henle's  home — the  Gottingen  militia's  serenade; 
the  chief  burgomaster  delivered  the  town's  greetings,  the  stu- 
dents presented  their  teacher  with  a  golden  laurel  wreath,  and 
in  the  celebrations  that  followed,  Henle  saw  before  him  some 
of  the  most  distinguished  scientists  of  Germany.  It  was  the 
master's  Jubilee,  and  his  former  pupils  came  from  their  aca- 
demic chairs  to  honor  him.  Kolliker  prepared  a  noble  ad- 
dress, signed  by  great  names,  in  which  he  said: 

You  celebrate  to-day  the  day  on  which  just  fifty  years  ago,  you 
delivered  your  famous  dissertation  De  membrana  pupillari,  and  upon 
which  you  received  your  doctor's  degree.  This  day  is  not  only  a  day  of 
honor  for  you,  but  a  great  joy  for  all  who  ever  stood  close  to  you. 
Permit  us  then,  your  one-time  pupils  and  now  your  colleagues,  to  offer 
to  you  our  sincere  esteem  and  our  gratitude. 

A  worthy  pupil  and  friend  of  Johannes  M  tiller,  you  followed  him 
first  into  the  field  of  comparative  anatomy,  but  only  to  soon  go  your 


JOHANNES    MULLER 


THE  JUBILEE  97 

own  way.  With  full  recognition  that  the  work  of  Schleiden  and 
Schwann,  based  upon  the  groundwork  of  Bichat,  had  to  be  upbuilt  and 
reconstructed,  you  created  your  General  Anatomy,  a  scientific  work  of 
the  highest  importance,  which  in  truth  was  to  become  the  keynote  of 
your  future  work,  Conspicuous  from  the  beginning,  through  its  abund- 
ance of  facts  and  ideas,  through  the  masterful  discussion  of  the  physi- 
ological activity  of  tissue  on  the  ground  of  their  anatomical  structure, 
and  through  the  careful  and  just  valuation  of  previous  works,  this  work 
will  remain  for  all  times,  a  paragon.  With  the  complete  understanding 
that  physiology  is  the  foundation  of  pathology,  you  erected  for  yourself 
in  this  field  an  indestructible  monument  by  your  Pathological  Researches 
in  which  you  foretold,  with  great  keenness,  the  latest  developments  in 
the  theory  of  epidemic  diseases.  Besides  this,  your  Anthropological 
Lectures,  and  the  Journal  of  Rational  Medicine  which  was  founded  by 
you  and  Pfeufer  and  continued  for  more  than  two  decades,  also  your 
Yearly  Reports,  bear  brilliant  testimony  to  your  vigorous  and  fruitful 
activity. 

The  climax,  however,  of  your  achievements  are  your  researches  in 
the  field  of  human  anatomy,  and  it  is  here  where  your  extraordinary 
talent  shines  triumphant,  not  only  in  the  way  your  discoveries  were 
made,  but  also  the  manner  in  which  they  were  presented.  In  fact,  your 
Handbook  of  Systematic  Anatomy  is  recognized  as  the  sole  work  of  its 
kind,  raising  the  ancient  and  supposedly  final  anatomical  sciences  to  an 
unprecedented  degree  of  perfection,  which  must  serve  as  a  foundation 
for  all  future  builders. 

The  picture  of  your  manifold  and  unusual  labors  would  still  remain 
incomplete,  if  we  were  to  omit  mention  of  your  activity  as  an  academic 
teacher,  and  in  this  field  we,  your  pupils  and  colleagues,  are  competent 
judges.  There  was  no  one  more  eloquent,  clearer  in  presentation, 
deeper  in  thought  and  conviction,  and  in  these  respects  you  will  always 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

be  to  us  an  unattainable  example.  Accept  then,  much-beloved  and 
highly  revered  master,  our  sincerest  thanks,  for  all  that  you  have  meant 
to  science  and  to  us!  Accept  our  best  wishes  for  the  glorious  event 
which  you  celebrate  to-day,  and  permit  us  to  give  expressions  to  our 
hopes,  that  there  may  remain  to  you  many  years  of  great  happiness  and 
blessed  work. 

Of  the  numerous  other  addresses,  the  best  remembered 
is  the  one  from  the  medical  faculty  of  Kiel,  which  began  with 
the  remark  that  their  greeting  was  not  an  isolated  word  out 
of  the  large  sum  of  gratitude  which  had  been  coming  to  him 
for  the  past  fifty  years,  for  physicians  and  research-workers 
without  number  owed  to  him  their  education  and  inspiration. 
The  characteristic  Festschrift,  the  university  of  Gottingen's 
commission  to  the  sculptor  Hartzer  for  a  bust  of  Henle  to 
stand  in  the  vestibule  of  their  anatomical  building,  the  decora- 
tions from  various  states  including  the  government  of  Prussia, 
were  other  tokens  of  esteem  which  marked  this  jubilee.  Hen- 
le's  alarm  that  he  was  being  honored  beyond  his  merits,  com- 
bined with  his  naive  pleasure  at  the  constant  stream  of  well- 
wishers  and  the  ever-accumulating  messages  of  congratula- 
tion, added  to  the  sincerity  and  geniality  of  the  celebration. 

After  the  elaborate  public  entertainment  was  over,  Henle's 
children  and  grandchildren  gathered  around  him,  and  in  their 
midst,  decorated  only  with  the  "Jocose  order  of  the  patriarch," 
he  was  most  content.  To  this  inner  group  a  few  chosen 
friends  were  invited,  among  them  being  Henle's  illustrious 
pupil,  Wilhelm  Waldeyer,  who  has  given  us  this  exquisite 
picture : 

Another  beautiful  phase   of  his  being  was  his  love   and  highly- 


THE  JUBILEE  99 

developed  devotion  to  his  family.  Whoever  had  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  him  in  the  circle  of  his  family,  will  never  forget  how  well  Henle 
understood  to  make  his  dear  ones  happy.  It  was  then  that  his  warm 
heart,  his  delightful  sense  of  humor  showed  itself.  I  found  him  thus 
in  the  spring  of  1882,  when  he  afforded  me  the  pleasure,  after  the  official 
days  of  his  Jubilee,  were  over,  of  inviting  me  to  a  celebration  in  his 
most  intimate  family  circle,  and  also  a  year  later  in  Herrenalb,  where 
he  and  his  family  were  spending  their  vacation,  and  I  was  tramping 
through  the  Schwarzwald.  These  days  will  remain  unforgotten;  and 
as  he  was  then  unbroken,  so  he  remained  to  the  very  end. 

Unbroken  but  not  unbowed,  for  the  autumn  of  1884  found 
Henle  a  sick  man.  Yet  throughout  the  winter  semester,  even 
when  the  physical  agony  of  intercostal  neuralgia  forced  him 
to  resort  to  morphine,  that  flashing  eye  and  winning  tone  still 
captivated  the  student-youth  of  Gottingen.  Not  till  the  offi- 
cial vacation  began,  did  he  seek  relief — but  what  can  Baden- 
Baden  do  for  a  renal  sarcoma  with  metastasis  in  the  vertebral 
column?  Henle  re-discovered  the  kidneys,  but  his  own  kid- 
neys killed  him.  Upon  his  death-bed  he  spoke  cheerfully  and 
consolingly  to  his  wife  and  children  to  the  end — the  thirteenth 
of  May,  1885. 

On  that  day,  the  curtain  descended  upon  a  career  of  dra- 
matic completeness,  for  it  opened  with  a  prison  and  ended 
with  a  jubilee.  No  longer  would  the  students  see  their  "old 
Jacob,"  and  son-in-law  Merkel  was  called  from  Koningsberg 
to  become  the  anatomist  of  Gottingen — and  here,  in  his  sacred 
hours,  he  enshrined  in  his  book  the  imperishable  name  of 
Jacob  Henle. 


IX 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE 

Henle's  history  does  not  end  with  his  death,  for  though 
the  man  is  dead,  his  work  endures.  Henle's  first  contribution 
to  science  was  his  dissertation  on  the  membrana  pupillaris 
(1832),  by  which  he  increased  our  knowledge  of  the  embry- 
ology of  the  eye.  The  organ  of  vision  continued  to  attract 
Henle:  he  described  the  histology  of  the  retina  (1839),  its 
anatomy  (1864),  the  physiology  of  the  lachrymal  canal  (1865), 
the  fibres  of  the  crystalline  lens  (1875),  the  construction  of 
the  lens  (1878),  and  its  development  (1882).  As  a  result  of 
these  studies,  we  have  several  eponyms.  Within  the  palpebral 
conjunctiva,  Henle  found  structures  resembling  lymph  folli- 
cles whcih  are  now  known  as  the  trachoma  glands  of  Henle, 
or  the  aggregated  glands  of  Bruch.  This  discovery  was  re- 
sponsible for  an  ophthalmological  puzzle,  for  it  is  still  un- 
decided whether  these  glands  are  normal  or  pathologic.  The 
lamina  basalis  which  forms  the  inner  boundary  of  the  choroid 
is  known  both  as  Bruch's  layer  and  as  Henle's  membrane. 
The  zone  of  cone-fibres  and  rod-fibres  in  the  region  of  the 
macula  lutea,  bears  the  name  of  Henle's  fibrous  layer.  The 
retinal  layers  exclusive  of  the  rod-and-cone  layer  are  known  as 
Briicke's  tunica  nervea  or  Henle's  stratum  nerveum.  The 

101 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

masses  on  the  cornea,  near  the  border  of  Descemet's  mem- 
brane, are  Henle's  warts.  After  witnessing  an  execution, 
Henle  wrote  "Experiments  and  Observations  on  a  Decapi- 
tated Person"  (1852),  which  states  his  discovery  that  the  yel- 
low spot  contains  no  rods  but  cones  only. 

During  Henle's  early  years  in  Berlin,  the  medical  faculty 
was  preparing  the  Encyclopedic  Dictionary  of  the  Medical 
Sciences,  and  Henle  was  commissioned  to  write  the  articles 
on  albumin,  olein,  epidermis,  epithelium,  eructation,  excreta, 
sepsis  (1834),  falx  cerebri  and  cerebelli,  fibro-cartilage,  fibrin, 
fauces,  fat,  yawning,  goose-flesh,  gall-bladder  (1835),  vascular 
glands,  sense  of  hearing  (1836),  hallucinations  (1837).  He 
wrote  also  for  Froriep's  Notices,  Hufeland's  Journal,  Wieg- 
mann's  Archives,  Casper's  Weekly,  Oken's  Isis,  and  the  Eng- 
lish Magazine  of  Natural  History,  but  most  of  his  work  during 
the  Berlin  period  was  published  in  the  journal  with  which  he 
was  himself  connected — Miiller's  Archiv.  His  contributions 
to  these  periodicals  included  his  observations  on  the  acque- 
ductus  vestibuli  and  cochlea  (1834),  Owen's  trichina  spiralis 
in  human  muscle  (1835),  musculus  spinalis  cervicis  in  man 
(1837),  mucus  and  pus  formation,  extension  of  epithelium  in 
the  human  body,  the  retention  of  memory  in  the  special  senses 
(1838),  the  microscopic  elements  of  milk,  the  construction  of 
glands  (1839),  the  contractility  of  vessels,  dropsy,  and  the 
structure  and  formation  of  the  human  hair  (1840).  The  outer 
cellular  layer  of  the  inner  root-sheath  of  the  hair  follicle,  sur- 
rounding the  layer  of  Huxley,  is  known  as  Henle's  layer. 

After  the  suave  Humboldt  succeeded  in  persuading  the 
Prussian  government  that  its  institutions  were  safe  even  with 
the  conspirator  Henle  out  of  prison,  Henle  produced  his 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  103 

habilitation-thesis,  Symbolae  ad  anatomiam  villorum  intesti- 
nalium  imprimis  eorum  epithelii  et  vasorum  lacteorum  (1837). 
With  this  treatise  the  modern  knowledge  of  the  epithelial 
tissues  begins,  and  the  young  man  of  twenty-eight  was  among 
the  immortals.  In  these  researches,  although  they  were  con- 
ducted with  nothing  better  than  a  Schieck  microscope,  the 
investigator  established  names  which  have  become  permanent 
parts  of  histology,  such  as  pavement  epithelium  and  cylinder 
epithelium,  and  was  the  first  to  define  columnar  and  ciliated 
epithelium,  and  the  first  to  describe  the  stratum  mucosum  of 
the  epidermis,  and  the  intestinal  epithelia.  His  pronounce- 
ment, in  the  following  year,  that  "all  free  surfaces  of  the  body, 
and  all  the  inner  surfaces  of  its  tubes  and  canals,  and  all  the 
wall  of  its  cavities,  are  lined  with  epithelium,"  was  one  of 
the  most  momentous  generalizations  of  the  century,  and  it 
paved  the  way  for  the  far-reaching  cell-theory  of  Schleiden  and 
Schwann,  which  in  turn  prepared  the  path  for  the  Darwinian 
theory.  Henle  is  the  first  author  mentioned  by  Schwann,  and 
on  account  of  the  fundamental  importance  of  Schwann's  work 
on  the  cell-theory — which,  like  Henle's  researches  on  the 
epithelium,  originated  in  the  lodging-house  at  Number  66 
Friedrichstrasse — we  will  quote  some  of  Schwann's  references 
from  his  "Microscopical  Researches  into  the  Accordance  in 
the  Structure  and  Growth  of  Animals  and  Plants"  (1839)  : 

A  very  important  advance  was  made  in  the  year  1837,  when  an 
actual  growth  of  the  elementary  particles  of  epithelium  was  proved  to 
take  place  without  vessels.  Henle  showed  that  the  cells  in  the  super- 
ficial layers  of  epithelium  are  much  more  expanded  than  those  in  the 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

deeper  strata,  a  fact  which  leaves  scarcely  any  doubt  as  to  tiieir  true 
plant-like — that  is,  non-vascular — growth. 

There  is  another  observation  of  Henle's,  which  is  opposed  to  the 
epithelium  being  regarded  as  a  lifeless  substance  secreted  from  the 
organized  tissue;  I  allude  to  the  passage  where  he  proved  that  the 
vibratile  cilia,  whose  motion  it  is  so  difficult  to  explain  by  physical 
laws,  stand  upon  little  cylinders  which  are  merely  a  modification  of 
the  epithelium. 

It  often  occurs  that  the  tabular  epithelial  cells  are  not  regularly 
hexagonal,  but  represent  flat  elongated  stripes,  a  fact  which  has  been 
observed  by  Henle  in  the  epithelium  of  the  vessels.  The  cells  which 
are  prolonged  into  cylinders  constitute  the  other  modification  in  the 
form  of  the  epithelial  cells.  They  were  discovered  by  Henle  in  the 
intestinal  mucous  membrane. 

With  regard  to  the  formation  of  the  epithelial  cells,  Henle  has 
already  proved  the  rete  Malpighii  to  consist  of  round  nucleated  cells, 
probably  the  young  epidermal  cells,  and  also  that  the  diameter  of  the 
cells  increases  towards  the  outside,  so  that  in  the  fetal  pig  he  was 
enabled  to  trace  the  gradual  transition  of  the  cells  of  the  rete  Malpighii 
into  those  of  the  epidermis. 

Henle's  treatises  on  the  Narcine,  a  new  kind  of  electric 
ray  (1834),  on  the  Branchiobdella  and  on  the  explanation  of 
the  sexual  organs  of  the  Annelida  and  hermaphroditic  snails 
(1835),  on  the  Enchytraeus,  a  new  annelid  (1837),  and  on  the 
larynx,  with  special  consideration  of  the  larynx  of  reptiles 
(1839)  constitute  his  independent  work  in  comparative  anat- 
omy. In  the  important  monograph  on  the  larynx — which 
aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  old  Humboldt — Henle  traced  the 
development  of  the  organ  of  voice  from  the  simple  cartilage- 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  105 

strip  in  the  Proteus  to  the  complex  structure  in  higher  ani- 
mals, saying  in  the  introduction : 

As  our  knowledge  regarding  the  development  of  the  larynx  and 
the  significance  of  its  individual  parts  is  still  very  incomplete,  and  in 
fact,  the  origin  and  gradual  development  of  the  larynx  in  the  embryos 
of  the  highest  animals  is  so  difficult  to  follow,  I  determined  to  undertake 
a  comparative-anatomical  research  of  this  organ,  in  the  hope  of  showing 
the  various  degrees  of  development  in  the  different  organisms,  gradu- 
ating from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  In  this  sense,  I  have  given  a 
zootomical  description  of  the  larynx  in  the  form  of  the  story  of  its 
development. 

It  is  one  of  the  oddities  of  science  that  these  words 
should  have  been  written  twenty  years  prior  to  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Origin  of  Species,  and  by  a  man  who  was  never 
reconciled  to  Darwinism. 

All  of  Henle's  work  in  comparative  anatomy  was  accom- 
plished under  the  influence  of  Johannes  Miiller,  with  whom  he 
collaborated  in  the  systematic  description  of  the  Plagiostomi. 
Miiller,  who  was  a  great  student  of  fish,  already  knew  the 
Plagiostomi  through  his  study  of  the  Myxine  and  Petromyzon, 
while  Henle  was  familiar  with  the  subject  on  account  of  his 
Narcine  investigation,  and  when  a  barrel  of  Sicilian  fish  was 
opened  in  the  Berlin  museum  at  the  same  time  that  a  collec- 
tion of  India  fishes  arrived,  both  scientists  found  many  in- 
teresting points  to  discuss,  and  decided  to  systematize  and 
extend  the  data  on  sharks  and  rays.  As  the  material  in  Berlin, 
although  extensive,  was  inadequate  for  their  purpose,  they 
journeyed  to  Rotterdam  and  Leyden,  and  later  to  London, 
everywhere  accumulating  scientific  friends  and  treasures.  In 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

London  they  became  greatly  attached  to  the  Owen  family, 
and  while  the  distinguished  Sir  Richard  painted  Miiller's 
portrait,  Henle  improved  the  German  of  Mrs.  Owen — the 
cleverest  of  female  diarists.  After  leaving  England,  the  trav- 
elers separated  in  the  interest  of  the  investigation,  Henle 
going  to  Frankfurt,  and  Miiller  proceeding  to  Paris. 

When  they  met  again  in  Berlin,  both  had  numerous  ob- 
servations and  discoveries  to  report,  and  prepared  their  manu- 
scripts for  the  press.  In  order  to  insure  the  publisher  against 
loss,  the  authors  agreed  to  purchase  twenty  copies  annually 
as  long  as  a  deficit  remained.  "The  Systematic  Description 
of  the  Plagiostomi"  (1838-41)  was  certainly  a  splendid  piece 
of  research,  but  as  the  Plagiostomi  didn't  read  it,  and  as  few 
human  beings  did,  and  as  the  practical  publisher  demanded 
that  the  contract  be  fulfilled  with  scientific  exactitude,  Miiller 
and  Henle,  in  the  course  of  years,  possessed  scores  of  copies 
of  their  mutual  masterpiece. 

During  Henle's  last  year  in  Berlin,  his  "Pathological  Re- 
searches" (1840)  appeared.  In  the  brilliant  essay  on  fevers 
he  dethroned  the  archaeus  of  Helmont  and  the  sensitive  soul 
of  Stahl,  and  offered  a  rational  explanation  of  elevated  body- 
temperature.  But  the  feature  of  the  book  was  the  essay  on 
"Miasms  and  Contagia,"  which  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
germ-theory  of  disease,  as  it  contains  the  first  clear  state- 
ment, in  modern  terms,  that  infectious  diseases  are  due  to 
specific  microorganisms.  Henle  said  that  if  these  organisms 
are  invisible,  it  is  not  because  of  their  extraordinary  small- 
ness,  but  because  they  differ  so  little  from  the  tissues  in  which 
they  are  imbedded,  that  they  remain  unrecognizable.  The 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  107 

predictions  which  Henle  made  in  1840  were  fulfilled,  more 
than  forty  years  afterward,  by  his  pupil,  Robert  Koch.  When 
the  stain  was  introduced  into  bacteriology,  Henle  was  hailed 
as  a  prophet — but  in  the  Berlin  days,  when  Henle  and  Hirsch- 
wald  met  for  the  last  time,  the  publisher  complained  that 
the  entire  edition  of  "Pathological  Researches"  was  still  on 
his  hands. 

After  his  removal  to  Zurich,  Henle  discovered  the  De- 
modex  folliculorum  (1841),  the  ubiquitous  pimple-mite  which 
presides  over  spoilt  complexions.  But  as  Henle  mistook  the 
rear  end  of  the  parasite  for  its  head,  he  was  not  particularly 
proud  when  this  acarus  was  mentioned,  and  although  he 
later  wrote  on  the  gregarines,  the  parasites  of  invertebrates 
(1845),  he  was  never  completely  at  home  in  Johannes  Miiller's 
domain  of  zoology  and  comparative  anatomy.  As  the  mas- 
ter's welcoming  and  guiding  hand  was  now  lacking,  Henle 
turned  to  a  field  where  he  had  few  compeers — human  ana- 
tomy. In  a  communication  to  Schoell,  he  says: 

With  infinite  joy,  I  now  write  my  Handbook  of  General  Anatomy. 
It  is  splendid  to  cast  away  a  few  old  prejudices  and  to  watch  how 
here  and  there  a  light,  or  at  least,  the  twilight,  breaks  through,  and  how 
a  new  principle  substantiates  itself  in  a  newly  founded  fact.  And  now  I 
work  faster  than  in  the  olden  times  when  I  had  to  run  in  to  you  every 
two  hours  or  so,  with  a  half  page  of  my  Contagia.  You  had  to  stand  a 
great  deal  from  me  in  those  days,  but  I  have  profited  much,  and  know, 
therefore,  that  you  are  not  regretting  it.  I  was,  in  those  days,  almost 
too  modest,  but  I  believed  implicitly,  that  which  to  me  appeared  abso- 
lute and  vital,  must  surely  have  already  occurred  to  other  sensible 
people.  Now  when  in  spite  of  all  the  mistrust  against  me,  and  in  spite 
of  my  wish  to  agree  with  the  majority,  I  daily  find  fresh  confirmation 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

or  refute  them,  I  feel  more  comfortable  and  I  learn  to  proceed  without 
apprehension. 

My  book  creates  sensation  enough,  and  the  critics  find  two  ways 
of  dealing  with  it:  some  sing  me  all  sorts  of  praise,  but  find  this  and 
that  to  be  startling,  and  believe  that  this  and  that  holds  entirely  too 
fast  to  need  to  be  defended  against  my  attacks;  if  we  were  to  do  so  and 
so,  then  there  would  remain  little  that  was  certain.  Others  belittle  me 
in  the  very  beginning,  and  hold  me  up  as  a  warning  example  why  a 
theoretician  should  not  treat  of  practical  things,  and  then  believing  they 
have  accomplished  enough,  they  concede  the  details,  step  by  step,  or 
break  their  teeth  on  it.  Only  a  few,  young,  sanguine,  and  still  un- 
occupied people,  gape  with  open  mouths,  and  on  these  my  hopes  are 
centered. 

Aside  from  its  new  facts,  such  as  the  demonstration  of 
unstriped  muscle  in  the  endothelial  coats  of  the  lesser  arteries, 
the  broad  conceptions  and  the  new  principles  enunciated  in 
Henle's  "General  Anatomy,"  made  its  publication  the  most 
important  medical  event  of  the  year  1841.  Bichat  was  sur- 
passed, and  science  acclaimed  a  new  master.  "To  us  young 
medical  men,"  wrote  Kussmaul,  "a  new  world  opened  up 
through  Henle's  General  Anatomy.  It  holds  its  readers  almost 
more  by  the  vistas  it  suggests,  than  by  what  already  exists. 
Curiosity  drove  me  to  read  the  book,  and  the  impression 
which  it  made  upon  me  I  can  only  compare  with  which  I 
received  on  reading  Liebig's  works,  and  I  began,  just  as  I 
did  with  the  latter,  to  commit  the  vital  parts  of  the  contents 
to  memory."  Of  the  numerous  encomiums  which  this  work 
has  received,  none  is  more  illuminating  than  the  tribute  of 
Walther  Flemming,  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  cytology, 
author  of  the  aphorism,  Omnis  nucleus  e  nucleo: 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  109 

It  was  Henle,  who  in  his  researches  and  studies  on  epithelium, 
made  the  most  important  references  to  the  cellular  construction  of 
animal  tissue.  How  deeply  he  became  absorbed  in  the  general  problem 
of  the  cell  theory  is  plainly  evident  from  the  fact  that  two  years  after 
the  publication  of  Schwann's  book,  he  published  his  General  Anatomy; 
and  one  may  say  that  this  contained  the  first  real,  rational  tissue  theory 
of  the  animal  body,  so  comprehensive  and  many-sided,  that  it  earned  the 
admiration  of  the  entire  biological  world.  If  I  may  use  a  paradox,  it 
is  not  a  work  which  can  be  accomplished  in  two  years,  and  it  shows 
that  Henle  occupied  himself  with  animal  tissue  in  the  sense  of  the  cell 
theory,  long  before  it  was  proclaimed. 

During  his  latter  days  in  Zurich,  Henle  collaborated 
with  Kolliker  in  the  publication  of  a  monograph  on  the  Pa- 
cinian  bodies  (1844),  and  in  this  year  appeared  the  first  vo- 
lume of  Henle  and  Pfeufer's/oi/rna/  of  Rational  Medicine 
(1844-69).  The  contents  opened  with  Henle's  belligerent 
manifesto  on  Medical  Science  and  Empiricism,  and  early  is- 
sues of  the  magazine  contained  his  essays  on  hypertrophy 
and  tumors  through  checked  resorption,  wherein  he  explain- 
ed the  relationship  between  the  blood  and  lymph  streams, 
and  on  tonus,  cramp  and  paralysis  of  the  bronchi  and  ex- 
pe"ctoration,  which  was  valuable  for  its  observations  on  the 
physiology  and  pathology  of  breathing,  and  for  its  demon- 
stration of  the  contractility  of  the  bronchi  through  the  action 
of  the  smooth  musculature.  The  journal  grew  in  influence, 
and  to  later  numbers  Henle  contributed  his  observations  on 
cylindroma-siphonoma,  a  new  genus  of  tumor  (1845),  on  the 
absorption  of  narcotics  through  the  lymphatics  (1846),  on 
blood  analyses,  on  Hassall's  corpuscles  (1849),  on  the  cora- 
cobrachialis  muscle  (1857),  on  the  tissues  of  the  suprarenals 


110  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

and  hypophysis  cerebri  (1865).  The  Journal  of  Rational 
Medicine  existed  for  twenty-five  years,  and  upon  the  death  of 
Pfeufer,  Henle  closed  the  magazine's  career  with  the  words: 
"If  our  successes  were  helpful,  if  our  errors  served  as  warn- 
ings, then  the  flag  of  Rational  Medicine  has  not  waved  in 
vain." 

Apart  from  his  periodical  editorship,  Henle  was  the  an- 
nual reviewer  of  medical  progress,  a  task  which  was  begun 
in  Berlin,  and  extended  through  the  Heidelberg  period,  far 
into  the  Gottingen  times.  These  Yearly  Reports  were  on 
the  progress  of  physiology,  pathology  and  pathological  ana- 
tomy (1838-9),  on  pathology  (1845-6),  on  histology  (1844-8), 
and  on  general  and  special  anatomy  (1849-55).  The  anato- 
mical reports  were  published  in  Canstatt's  Yearly  Reports 
until  the  publication  passed  into  the  hands  of  Virchow,  and 
Henle  then  continued  these  annual  summaries  of  anatomy  in 
Henle  and  Meissner's  Yearly  Reports  (1856-71).  "One  of 
Henle's  most  important  activities,"  said  Leyden,  "were  his 
Yearly  Reports,  a  literary  creation  which  ranks  exceptionally 
high,  and  is  practically  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  These  Yearly 
Reports  were  always  looked  forward  to  with  great  expecta- 
tion." 

Even  as  an  annual  reporter,  Henle  was  too  much  alive 
to  be  tedious,  and  if  his  Yearly  Reports  were  not  as  calmly 
indifferent  as  Hofmann-Schwalbe's,  they  were  far  more  read- 
able and  stimulating.  To  offer  simply  the  bare  facts,  to 
abstract  all  the  articles  on  a  given  subject  and  put  down  the 
data  without  interpretation  or  comment,  to  present  the  status 
of  every  topic  with  the  routine  impartiality  of  an  index- 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  111 

catalog,  did  not  accord  with  Henle's  idea  of  what  an  annual 
report  should  be.  He  could  not  help  becoming  incensed  at 
statements  which  he  knew  to  be  unwarranted,  and  work  which 
he  regarded  as  significant,  aroused  his  enthusiasm.  If  cer- 
tain points  seemed  dubious,  Henle  laid  aside  the  pen,  and 
his  scalpel  or  microscope  either  confirmed  or  confuted  the 
author  he  was  reporting. 

These  reports  became  famous  for  their  commentary,  and 
it  is  said  that  toward  spring,  at  which  time  they  appeared, 
there  was  an  annual  uneasiness  among  authors,  and  they 
turned  the  pages  with  shaky  fingers  to  see  how  they  had 
passed  the  censorship  of  so  keen  a  critic.  "It  is  not  of  so 
much  importance,"  said  Henle,  "to  write  up  pathologico- 
anatomical  facts;  in  this  direction  our  report  does  not  even 
pretend  to  be  complete,  as  it  does  not  comprise  all  the  scat- 
tered and  so-called  interesting  instances.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  am  endeavoring  to  group  together  those  discoveries  which 
promise  to  disclose  facts  regarding  the  nature  and  organic 
foundation  of  disease  phenomena,  as  well  as  experiments 
which  are  made  in  order  to  bring  the  connection  of  the  pheno- 
mena upon  the  path  indicated  by  physiology.  As  there  are 
not  only  facts  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  but  also  the 
mode  of  the  connection,  theory  and  polemic  cannot  be  avoid- 
ed." In  the  numerous  tilts  that  ensued,  Henle  was  not  in- 
variably the  victor.  Virchow  maintained  that  connective 
tissue  contains  fully  developed  cells  with  all  their  attributes, 
while  Henle  insisted  that  only  the  nuclei  were  present,  and 
that  what  Virchow  mistook  for  complete  cells  were  optical 
delusions.  He  wrote: 


112  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

These  optical  delusions  bring  to  mind  the  kind  of  pictures,  which 
were  rather  widely  distributed  after  Napoleon's  death.  At  first  glance, 
one  sees  an  urn,  and  over  it  a  drooping  willow  tree,  and  between  the 
two  a  low  cypress;  if,  however,  one  looks  at  the  white  space  which 
these  three  objects  create,  one  recognizes  the  profile  of  the  figure  of 
Napoleon,  and  once  we  are  accustomed  to  contemplate  the  white  sil- 
houette which  surrounds  the  pictures,  they  themselves  become  mean- 
ingless. Virchow's  connective  tissue  corpuscles  are  vacant  spaces,  sur- 
rounded by  fibres  or  strata,  which  one  overlooks  or  considers  a  homo- 
genous mass  when  one  becomes  absorbed  in  contemplating  the  vacant 
places. 

In  this  dispute,  Henle  went  down  beneath  the  lance  of 
his  junior,  but  the  above-quoted  paragraph  is  evidence  that 
Jacob  Henle  was  delightful  even  when  he  was  wrong.  It  is 
due  largely  to  these  Yearly  Reports  that  Henle's  books  are 
so  rich  in  references  to  the  history  and  literature  of  the  medi- 
cal sciences. 

Henle's  chief  contribution  to  pathology  was  his  "Hand- 
book of  Rational  Pathology"  (1846-53).  It  is  the  product 
of  an  intellectual  revolutionist,  and  not  only  did  it  over- 
throw antiquated  systems,  but  it  brought  forward  certain 
speculations  whose  utility  had  not  been  fully  established. 
To  those  who  argued  that  we  should  cling  to  the  old  dead 
theories  until  the  new  ones  proved  to  be  of  permanent  value, 
Henle  proposed  the  following  parable: 

A  pedant  owned  a  nightingale  for  a  long  time,  and  had  great 
pleasure  in  its  song.  Then  the  bird  died.  The  pedant  found  the 
silence  unpleasant,  and  went  out  to  purchase  another  bird.  There  were 
but  a  few  pilfered  nests  in  the  market,  and  the  vendors  did  not  know 
whether  the  eggs  were  fertile,  or  at  least  would  not  guarantee  that 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  113 

male  birds  would  hatch;  then  too,  the  brood  would  require  much  atten- 
tion before  they  grew  up  to  be  singers.  The  pedant  thought  this  to  be 
too  risky,  and  he  went  away  saying  that  he  would  rather  keep  his  dead 
nightingale.  This  was  conservative,  but  to  what  purpose?  That  the 
care  might  be  wasted  on  the  young  brood  was  possible,  but  that  the 
dead  nightingale  would  never  sing  was  certain. 

Written  in  a  graceful  and  brilliant  style,  opening  with 
the  dictum,  "The  duty  of  the  Physician  is  to  prevent  and  to 
cure  diseases,"  studded  with  such  epigrams  as  "The  day  of 
the  last  hypothesis  would  be  also  the  day  of  the  last  observa- 
tion," and  "An  hypothesis  which  becomes  dispossessed  by 
new  facts,  dies  an  honorable  death;  and  if  it  has  already  call- 
ed up  for  examination  those  truths  by  which  it  was  anni- 
hilated, it  deserves  a  monument  of  gratitude,"  laughing  the 
medical  devil  out  of  existence  and  establishing  rational  con- 
cepts of  disease,  the  Handbook  of  Rational  Pathology  created 
a  sensation,  and  what  made  it  of  epochal  importance  was 
its  cardinal  principle:  "The  physiology  of  the  sick  and  of 
the  healthy  are  not  different,  physiology  and  pathology  are 
one."  As  Walther  Flemming  said: 

There  is  no  better  testimonial  of  Henle's  success  than  this:  that 
the  principles  which  he,  as  a  pathologist,  fought  for,  have  become  a 
part  of  us  to  such  an  extent  that  we  forget  there  could  ever  have  been 
an  opposition.  For  who  knows  to-day  much  of  the  natural-philoso- 
phico-medical  system,  which  was  in  vogue  during  Henle's  youth?  One 
has  to  question  the  elders,  as  the  young  have  but  little  time  to  devote 
to  the  history  of  medicine.  That  the  systems  of  those  days  are  ancient 
and  already  belong  to  history,  is  largely  due  to  Henle.  His  reform-cry, 


114  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

Rational  Pathology  and  Physiology  are  identical,  became  the  watch- 
word of  all  true  physicians. 

Henle's  anthropological  lectures  at  Heidelberg  were  ex- 
ceedingly popular,  and  were  attended  not  only  by  students  of 
all  the  faculties,  but  by  such  men  as  the  historian  Gervinus 
and  the  Swiss  Gottfried  Keller,  one  of  the  foremost  lyrists 
and  novelists  in  German  literature.  Henle  first  met  Keller 
in  Switzerland,  and  remarked,  "It  was  all  one  whether  a 
tame  young  bear  or  a  poet  had  been  sitting  at  the  table  with 
us,  for  outside  of  some  inarticulate  growling,  we  heard  noth- 
ing else  from  him."  After  hearing  Henle's  anthropological 
lectures,  Keller  interwove  their  essence  into  his  chief  novel, 
Der  grune  Heimich.  In  his  old  age,  it  gave  Henle  much 
pleasure  to  prepare  his  "Anthropological  Lectures"  (1876- 
80)  for  the  press. 

After  his  settlement  in  Gottingen,  when  Henle  felt  that 
the  time  had  come  for  his  main  work,  he  undertook  a  com- 
plete re-examination  of  the  human  body,  a  labor  which  he 
completed  after  sixteen  years  of  unremitting  toil;  his  osteo- 
logy (1855),  was  followed  by  syndesmology  (1856),  myology 
(1858),  splanchnology  (1862-66),  and  neurology  (1871), 
these  instalments  comprising  his  three-volumed  "Handbook 
of  Systematic  Anatomy"  (1855-71),  which  was  followed  by 
an  "Atlas"  (1874-77),  for  use  in  the  dissecting-room,  and  by 
a  condensed  presentation  of  the  subject,  "Ground-plan  of 
Anatomy"  (1880),  later  editions  of  which  have  been  edited 
by  Merkel.  Upon  the  publication  of  the  great  textbook, 
Henle  complained  humorously  that  now  he  was  compelled 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  115 

to  teach  according  to  Henle.  The  illustrations,  whose  num- 
ber and  excellence  impelled  universal  admiration,  were  drawn 
by  Henle  himself,  and  the  language  of  the  text  was  classic. 
"Henle,"  said  Flemming,  "was  an  orator  with  his  pen  as 
well  as  in  his  academic  chair."  Henle  advocated  a  neutral, 
common-to-all,  Latin  terminology  in  science,  saying  "There 
are  other  means  of  expression  of  love  for  the  fatherland  and 
mother-tongue,  than  the  sacrifice  of  time  and  tongue  which 
makes  one  say,  instead  of  n.,  a.,  and  v.  cruralis,  schenkelnerv, 
schenkelpulsader,  and  schenkelblutader."  Henle  wrote  on 
the  disadvantage  of  eponymic  terms  in  anatomy,  but  his  own 
name  is  found  on  the  bones,  muscles,  vessels  and  viscera  of 
the  human  body;  examples,  besides  those  already  mentioned, 
are  Henle's  spine,  Henle's  fissures,  Henle's  ligament,  and 
Henle's  fenestrated  membrane. 

Special  reference  should  be  made  to  Henle's  urogenital 
work.  He  discovered  cylindric  casts  in  the  urine ;  pointed  out 
that  varicocele  is  almost  invariably  left-sided;  described  the 
expanded  outer  half  of  the  Fallopian  tube,  known  as  Henle's 
ampulla;  the  portion  of  the  uriniferous  tubule,  known  as  the 
canal  of  Henle;  the  granular  mononuclear  cells  in  the  semi- 
niferous tubules,  known  as  Henle's  cells;  the  fibrin  formed 
by  precipitating  semen  with  water,  known  as  Henle's  fibrin; 
the  remains  of  the  gubernaculum  surrounding  the  vas  de- 
ferens  and  vessels  of  the  spermatic  cord,  known  as  Henle's 
internal  cremaster;  and  the  striated  muscular  fibres  encirc- 
ling the  prostatic  and  membranous  urethra,  known  as  Henle's 
sphincter.  But  his  most  interesting  find  in  this  field  was  the 
U-shaped  turn  of  the  uriniferous  tubule  which  is  formed  by 


116  THE  LIFE  OF  JACOB  HENLE 

a  descending  and  an  ascending  loop-tube,  known  everywhere, 
as  Henle's  loop.  Concerning  this  discovery,  the  fortunate 
Henle  wrote  one  of  his  characteristic  notes  to  Pfeufer: 

It  is  about  time,  my  dear  friend,  that  I  inform  you  of  the  good 
fortune  which  has  befallen  me,  of  making  a  discovery  in  my  old  years, 
which  is  far  more  surprising  and  remarkable  than  any  other  heretofore 
made  by  me.  Apart  from  the  joy  of  having  found  something  new  in  an 
organ  a  thousand  times  investigated  and  settled,  I  also  enjoy  the 
extraordinary  satisfaction  that  my  find  is  based  on  injection,  and  that 
the  colleagues  who  credit  me  merely  with  the  gift  of  the  tongue,  can 
no  longer  look  down  upon  me  from  their  injection-syringe. 

Henle's  medico-historical  knowledge  was  extensive,  and 
he  was  intimate  with  many  scientists  who  made  history  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  but  he  produced  only  three  biographic 
memoirs:  on  Albrecht  von  Haller  (1872),  on  Ernst  Heinrich 
Weber  (1878),  and  on  Theodor  Schwann  (1882).  In  the 
year  of  his  jubilee,  Henle's  scientific  work  was  nearing  its 
close,  but  in  that  year  a  man  whom  he  had  trained,  and  who 
was  deeply  influenced  by  his  theory  of  contagion,  electrified 
the  world  by  his  discovery  of  the  tubercle  bacillus.  Forty 
years  earlier,  Henle  vainly  searched  for  microorganisms  in 
typhoid  cadavers,  in  smallpox  material,  and  in  the  scales  of 
scarlatina,  but  by  his  fixing  and  staining  methods,  Robert 
Koch  substantiated  his  teacher's  theories  by  demonstrating 
bacillus  after  bacillus. 

Henle's  last  publication  was  appropriately  in  anatomy, 
a  noteworthy  monograph  on  the  growth  of  the  human  nail 
and  the  horsehoof  (1884).  In  sending  a  copy  to  Waldeyer, 
on  the  twenty-ninth  of  December,  Henle  wrote: 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  SCIENCE  117 

Enclosed  is  the  child  of  my  ageing  loins;  it  is  a  great  pleasure  for 
me  to  send  you  this,  as  it  gives  me  an  opportunity  to  renew  our 
neglected  correspondence,  and  to  inquire  as  to  the  state  of  your  health. 
I  cannot  say  much  for  mine.  Since  the  beginning  of  this  semester,  I 
worry  along  with  a  leftsided  intercostal  neuralgia,  which  I  have  been 
able  to  tame  with  morphium  to  the  extent  of  being  able  to  deliver  my 
lectures.  Besides  the  physical  suffering,  it  also  causes  me  great  sorrow 
to  find  that  it  in  no  way  conforms  with  my  beautiful  theory  founded 
on  the  process  of  vena  hemiazygos,  as  the  exacerbations  are  evidently 
wholly  independent  of  venous  stagnations. .  Under  these  conditions,  the 
days  of  our  external  existence  pass  in  quietude  and  monotony. 

In  the  coming  spring,  the  old  scientist  reached  the  end 
of  his  journey,  but  before  he  passed  from  the  sight  of  men, 
he  had  bequeathed  to  us  the  true  knowledge  of  epithelium, 
the  rational  outlook  upon  pathology,  the  germ-theory  on 
which  we  have  built  the  corner-stone  of  modern  medicine, 
and  the  most  comprehensive  study  of  the  human  body  that 
had  yet  appeared.  Sic  itur  ad  astra,  O  Jacobus  Henle! 

(The  end) 


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